Ivan Oransky: Are we over medicalized?

[estefaniarivera]

Ivan Oransky: Are we over-medicalized? Is mainly about the prevalent obcession that we are all going to eventually develop some sort of life threating disease and that in order to prevent this we need to begin treatments for conditions we haven’t develop yet. The amount of assumed illnesses being treated at the time can vary anywhere from “pre-acne” to “pre-dementia” urging such patients to begin taking medical treatments for a disease they may be predisposed to but may never actually acquire. Oransky claims that by taking such measures and consuming medications that claim to treat these “pre” illnesses we are only doing the opposite by unknowingly placing ourselves in the path toward obtaining far worse diseases. For example in the video Oransky mentions a group of female patients that by trying to lessen or improve the many symptoms experienced during menopause opted to take medication for it. The problem is that in recent studies research has led many doctors to speculate that although the medication was effective when it came to reducing the signs of menopause it seemed that these same patients were experiencing other various side effects caused directly by the “pre” menopause drug. Although the desire to prevent most type of illnesses from developing in our bodies is by all means understandable is it far more important for the public to realize that they can be hurting themselves on their path toward prevention especially when it requires consuming medications that our bodies did not necessarily need. An important quote Oransky says is that we all have a “universally fatal condition. It's called pre-death.” We cannot continue going out of our way in order to prevent any little thing from happening to us as this nearly impossible to accomplish.