Light summer reading?

Well, perhaps not.  But reading that I think would be important for anyone who is interested in maintaining their health – especially individuals who are on a prescription medication regimen.

I've recently read Overdiagnosed: Making People Sick in the Pursuit of Health by Dr. H. Gilbert Welch.  Dr. Welch is a physician and an internationally-known medical researcher at the Dartmouth Institute in New Hampshire. 

His and his colleagues’ (Dr. Lisa Schwartz and Dr. Steve Woloshin) research has raised some serious questions about the lowering of threshold points for various diseases which has subsequently led to a dramatic increase in labeling many normally healthy people as having diseases.

The consequences of doing so are equally dramatic.  Millions of new patients that are required to take medications – medications whose side-effects may be actually detrimental to their health. 

According to Dr. Welch’s book, this sudden lowering of the thresholds was and is done by “cutoff panels” whose members often have ties to the pharmaceutical industry.  Unfortunately, the motivations of these individuals do not appear to be entirely altruistic.

A couple of snippets from this engaging book:

Relative to early diagnosis, Dr. Welch writes:

Americans have been trained to be concerned about our health... But the truth is that early diagnosis is a double-edged sword. While it has the potential to help some, it always has a hidden danger: overdiagnosis – the detection of abnormalities that are not destined to ever bother us. ( p. xii)

And regarding early diagnosis and treatment of pre-hypertension:

We don't know whether treating pre-hypertension changes anybody's risk of heart attack, stroke, or death. But we do know that it's an enormous market – about eighteen million new patients. (p. 28)

And the good doctor also writes about how the patient’s thought has an effect on their health outcomes.  As a Christian Scientist, that’s an area I’ve witnessed over and over again in my own life and work.

As I said, Overdiagnosed is an informative, intriguing, and interesting read. 

Light?  Definitely not!  Eye-opening?  Definitely yes!