By Dr. Mercola

In an unusual story of Rosario Schielzeth, a woman who turned 104 in June, newspaper reporters wanted to know her secret for a long lifeⁱ. Her answer consisted of just two simple rules that she’s always lived by:

1. Watching what she eats, and
2. Staying away from doctors

Before you assume that this lady lives in some far-off country where her life principles can’t be questioned or proven, know that she lives in Sarasota, Florida. She needs a walker as an aid in moving around, but other than that she has perfect vision since her cataract surgery, and doesn’t need a hearing aid.

And she still manages to go to the movies, the mall, and the beach for ice cream. Another amazing thing about her is that she’s the round-the-clock care-taker of her 87-year-old daughter, who has Alzheimer’s disease.

Rosario and her daughter with Alzheimer’s serve as a powerful harbinger of what is to come for future generations. It has long been predicted that the youth will not live as long as their parents. The subtle unstated implication however is that this also includes chronic degenerative diseases that will prematurely kill or cripple you.

That is why it is SO VITAL that you and your children embrace the health principles taught on this site that could easily prevent this from happening in your family.

Apart from vitamins, Rosario reportedly only takes one pill a day, a mild blood-pressure medication. This is in stark contrast to the average American senior who is on more than 31 medications per person, according to recent statistics.ⁱⁱ

While one can argue about the many factors involved with making it past the 100-year mark, I believe Rosario’s advice really does cover the basics. Your diet accounts for about 80 percent of the health benefits you reap from a healthy lifestyle, and it’s become quite clear that avoiding drugs is a good idea if you want to live a long and healthy life. While many still have trouble grasping this idea, the statistics tell a powerful story when it comes to pharmaceutical drug use.

My mom is now 77 and my dad is 82 and neither of them take any drugs, and I am certain many reading this are older and also avoiding drugs, so it is doable.

Prescription Pain Killers are Now the LEADING Cause of Accidental Death

According to the latest data collected by the National Center for Health statistics, poisoning, primarily by prescription drugs, has now surpassed car accidents as the leading cause of accidental death in the United States. In 2008, 41,000 Americans died from poisoning, compared to 38,000 lethal car accidents. The data, which can be found on the CDC’s web siteⁱⁱⁱ, shows that:

• In 2008, poisoning became the leading cause of injury death in the United States and nearly 9 out of 10 poisoning deaths are caused by drugs.
• During the past three decades, the number of drug poisoning deaths increased six-fold from about 6,100 in 1980 to 36,500 in 2008.
• Opioid analgesics (prescription pain killers) were involved in more than 40 percent of all drug poisoning deaths in 2008, up from about 25 percent in 1999.
• During the most recent decade, the number of drug poisoning deaths involving opioid analgesics more than tripled from about 4,000 in 1999 to 14,800 in 2008.

While the drug poisoning death rate has risen among all age groups in the last decade, the death rate among adults between 45-54 is now the highest. Death by medicine is a 21st-century epidemic, and America’s “war on drugs” is clearly directed at the wrong enemy when you consider that prescription drugs are now killing far more people than illegal drugs.

The most commonly abused prescription drugs like OxyContin, Vicodin, Xanax and Soma now cause more deaths than heroin and cocaine combined. In fact, prescription drugs are now the preferred “high” for many, especially teens, as they are typically used legally, which eliminates the stigma of being a “junkie.”

Americans Consume 80 Percent of the Global Supply of Pain Pills!

The skyrocketing rate of prescription drug addiction has also led to a massive increase in robberies, which has led some pharmacies to quit stocking the sought-after drugs. Meanwhile we’re seeing ever-increasing amounts of legislation popping up designed to increase the use of drugs while preventing you to seek alternative non-drug treatments, especially for pain. To put these statistics into even further context, consider this:

According to an article in Mail Online published last month^iv:

“Americans consume 80 percent of the world’s supply of painkillers — more than 110 tons of pure, addictive opiates every year — as the country’s prescription drug abuse epidemic explodes. That’s enough drugs to give every single American 64 Percocets or Vicodin. And pain pill prescriptions continue to surge, up 600 percent in 10 years, thanks to doctors who are more and more willing to hand out drugs to patients who are suffering.” [Emphasis mine]

Rampant Conflicts of Interest Fuel Drug Use and Deaths

Take Florida for example. Under the 2012 PIP reform law, Floridians will no longer be able to seek massage therapy or acupuncture treatments after a car accident, as these services will no longer be covered under Florida PIP insurance^v. The primary treatment option left for those who suffer from pain as a result of a car accident is then—you guessed it—pain killers! This despite the fact that the most common auto accident-related injury is soft tissue damage, which is ideally treated through massage, not pain killers that can potentially add addiction and liver damage to your misery…

The bill was signed into law on May 4, 2012. The majority of the bill’s content will take effect on 1 July 2012, while the rest will not take effect until 1 January 2013. In a nauseating example of how financial conflicts of interest drive this health-harming trend, Florida governor Rick Scott has more than one link to Big Pharma, and the promotion of pain killers in particular:

• In 1997, Scott was implicated in the biggest Medicare fraud case in US history. According to a 2011 Mother Jones article^vi, he “stepped down as CEO of Columbia/HCA after the hospital giant was fined $1.7 billion and found guilty of swindling the government.”
• Then, last year, as he became Florida’s new governor, he initially tried to repeal an anti-fraud database designed to track fraudulent distribution of addictive prescription drugs in Florida. Only after public outcry and months of picketing, Scott announced the database would not be repealed after all.^vii
• In 2001 Scott co-founded Solantic, which has 32 walk-in clinics. He reportedly remained involved in its operations until 2010, when he placed the $62 million investment into a trust under his wife’s name. The Tampa Bay Times reported on the scandal last year, stating^viii:

“Scott has aggressively pursued policies like testing state workers and welfare recipients for drugs, switching Medicaid patients to private HMOs and shrinking public health clinics. All these changes could benefit that $62 million investment, but Scott sees no legal conflict between his public role and private investments. And, experts say, under Florida law he is correct. A few days before he took office in January, Scott moved his shares in Solantic Corp., a chain of 32 urgent care centers, to the Frances Annette Scott Revocable Trust.”

• The 2012 PIP reform law was strongly promoted by Rick Scott—changes which will undoubtedly benefit his wife’s clinics. Under the revised PIP law, only medical doctors, osteopathic physicians, dentists, physician’s assistants or advanced registered nurse practitioners are approved for PIP reimbursement. Chiropractors, acupuncturists and massage therapists are specifically excluded. By removing the option to treat post-accident pain with chiropractic adjustments, massage, and/or acupuncture, accident victims are left with but one option: pain killers and antidepressants.

Stunning Statistics

A previous article on The American Dream website offers an eye-opening list of US drug use statistics^ix. For the full list, please see the original article. Here are but a handful of the 18 statistics listed:

• More than 25 percent of all children and teens in the United States take prescription drugs on a regular basis
• More than 1 in 5 American adults, and 1 in 4 women, take at least one drug for “psychiatric” or “behavioral” disorders^x
• Approximately one-third of all foster children in the United States are on at least one psychiatric drug. Many children in foster care are prescribed as many as five different psychotropic drugs
• The percentage of women taking antidepressants in America is the highest in the world
• Prescription drugs cost about 50 percent more in the US than they do in other countries. Meanwhile, tens of billions of dollars are spent on pharmaceutical marketing in the United States each year, and more than two dozen pharmaceutical companies each made over a billion dollars in profits during the year of 2008 alone

In related news, an excerpt from the book, Degree Mills: The Billion-Dollar Industry That Has Sold Over a Million Fake Diplomas^xi raises another disturbing issue, namely that of fake doctors. According to the authors, Ezell and Bear, the number of fake PhD’s in the US outnumber real, earned PhD’s. In fact, more than HALF of all people claiming to have a PhD in the US have a fake degree! Unfortunately, this problem is not restricted to academics, who, hopefully, would not be able to inflict too much bodily harm. Fake medical degrees are also “an urgent problem,” according to the authors.

“Twenty-five years ago, a Congressional committee calculated that there were over 5,000 fake doctors in the United States, and there are many more now. People have died because of these fakes,” they write.

Furthermore:

“There are more than 3,300 unrecognized universities, worldwide, many of them outright fakes, selling bachelor’s, master’s, doctorates, law, and medical degrees to anyone willing to pay the price. No nation is immune from the problem. One international diploma mill, with offices in Europe and the Middle East and mailing addresses in the United Kingdom, run by Americans, has sold more than 450,000 degrees—bachelor’s, master’s, doctorates, medicine, and law—to clients worldwide, who did nothing more than write a check.” 

Read the Full Article Here: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/07/02/prescription-drugs-vs-healthy-diet.aspx