HC,

yes, fantastic link. that, i believe would work for the mentally ill as well. there is a physcologist i listened to once that declared chemical imbalances a theory at best, and likey a selling tool for drugs. nutritional imbalance COULD play a part but...

his many years of experience gave him the impression that failing to forgive others was directly related to mental illness. imagine an introvert being bullied and not able to forgive the bullies for many years. the feeling builds such that maybe he/she believes all jocks, girls, boys(whatever group) are all "against" him/her.

drugs would def complicate things, not help. at this point a desperate person can and will do anything.

Beef,

i used to be a big critic of the pharm industry thinking it was all a scam. the truth is there's a balance--cancer, diabetes, trauma, and such drugs do serve a purpose.

the problem is that we are OVER medicated. the US consumes ~70% of the world's prescription drugs, yet we are only ~4% of the world's population. does this constitute health? hardly! we are near the bottom in health of the industialized nations.

i do believe in healthcare reform, but not socialized healthcare. this issue, IMO, is the greatest and most controllable(reducable) expense/hurdle in healthcare.

bowtie,

there is a big difference between altering a persons physical state and altering a persons mind state. I think that drugs that alter a persons mind state are dangerous. obviously, they have their place. take the heavy pain medicine first, then yank out the tooth. don't take the heavy pain medicine because your life sucks. alter your life, not the perception of it.

my father has diabetes and now has a machine that automatically injects insulin into him via a needle that he changes every 2-3 days. his body (the physical) doesn't work right. the alternative to what he is doing now is grim at best. on the mental side, he enjoys life. he has 3 children, all married (inlaws are fun) and one grandchild for now (probably more to come, my sisters are still pretty young).

I think that anti-depression medicine is a tough one for me. I have went through tough times in my life and had to make hard decisions. most that are on anti-depression and the even stronger anti-anxiety medicine, are still living the same lives that they lived before they went on the medicine.

I may someday rely on the very medications that I condemn today and may have to eat my words. I still have to stand strong on my feelings. environment has a lot to do with mental state. if you want to change your mental state, change your environment. hopefully for the better.

and yes, america is overly medicated (generally speaking)

There's not enough information there to make any useful comparison.

The interesting statistics to compare would be our prescription drug usage to other industrialized nations, then compare that against how our health compares to them. We may consume 70% of the world's prescription drugs but be healthier than 80% of the world's population.

Once we get the more comparable (and compatible) statistics, we can look at many of the other variables - environment, occupation, recreation, general attitudes towards health, diet, physical fitness, culture, etc.

This reminds me of another interesting tangent about elderly mental ability:
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releas...-aet062309.php

i'm with ya HC. what cannot be "monitored" is the non-industrialized nations that do not report stats. so, our % of drugs could actually be HIGHER in that regard. i'm not certain how many nations use little or no prescriptions.

we've all heard stories about those living in pristine enviros w/out TV, cars, drugs, etc that live well beyond what we do.

the other thing is that the pharm industry claims to have "cured" certain diseases. well, the argument(and studies) has been made that this is directly related to better sanitation practices.

my thought is of those pristine situations(like in the mountains), 'cause we know places like africa still have wide spread disease, but there are sanitation(and war) issues there certainly.

on a side note...even our own water system has harmful chemicals. i'd put that in the same class as the pharm industry. i really gotta get that shower filter, soon!