Lyle Hurd: Welcome back, Jim LaValle. The one thing that we were we've talked a lot about personally is the whole impact that the prescription drug industry has on our lives, the pressure it creates within the medical community, the potential detriment that it can have for an individual, or the habituation that may come from it. Could you give us a little bit of a feeling about how you kind of, especially having been a pharmacist or being a pharmacist.
Jim LaValle: Right.
Lyle Hurd: How you see someone dealing with that properly from the inside of the medical part of it?
Jim Lavalle: Well, it's a really interesting topic, and in fact, it's a big of a conundrum quite honestly. First of all, we know that poly-pharmacy, or multiple drug prescriptions given to one individual is inducing what's called drug-induced diseases. That's one of the biggest topics in health care right now amongst medical docs and nurses and pharmacists is that you know we're given a drug to take care of side effects of a drug that's creating more side effects of another drug and then, before you know it, people are on 10, 12, 15 medications and that's no exaggeration. And so there's this pressure that we think that only drug therapy is a value. Great evidence has been shown that changing lifestyle, for example, in type-2 diabetes. Now, my father's a type-2 diabetic. My grandmother died from type-2 diabetes. I really understand this disease pretty well and have written quite a bit about it. Diet and exercise can go a long way to controlling a lot of type-2 diabetics. And there's a lot of people that are turning to that and reducing the amount of medications that they're on that doesn't mean that medications don't have value in diabetes or in diabetes and/or hypertension, which does occur in a lot of people at the same time. But it's the idea that we've got to begin to look at drug therapy and go, "is there a gentler start point that I can do it with my patient?" Now here's the problem with that. It assumes that the patient is going to want to be proactive. And see, a lot of times, I get it from both sides of the, the equation from, you know, you've got the docs over there, they are looking at me and go "you're too favorable towards natural products". And the natural products folks are looking at me go, "hey, you're too favorable towards drug therapy". You've got to remember that it only works to use natural therapies and lifestyles in the motivated person. There's the people out there, there is the people out there are like, "I want to eat chicken wings and French fries and I really don't want to exercise. I really don't want to change my lifestyle. I'm very happy the way I am, but I've got hypertension". And see we've got to remember that drug therapy works in spite of what you do. So, what we're trying to do is force everybody into one system of care. That everybody's got to have drug therapy is the way they treat their conditions. In reality, we have people that are motivated to change their lives and may need less drug therapy. They may want to use natural interventions first and not use drug therapy. Then we have people who need drug therapy; you know they absolutely do because of the condition or disease they have. And then you've got the folks that are simply not motivated. Now they might not be motivated because of education, or as anything, they might not be motivated because they simply choose not to participate in their health. So there's value in drug therapy, but the real issue is, we know drugs deplete nutrients out of the body. No one is talking about drug-induced nutrient depletion. I've written four books with my good buddy Ross Pelton on this topic.
Lyle Hurd: Yeah great man.
Jim Lavalle: This is good as a I get very, bright he is very bright, and we've got to recognize these basic issues that are going on with drug therapy. Drug-induced nutrient depletion is important. Poly-pharmacy, over-medicating, are they safer first options? very important. Pressure's on the doc. The doc's set up a medical system, "hey I got seven to ten minutes to talk to you and I've got to give you a solution. I've got to figure out what's going on and I've got to take care of why you feel bad" because in the end, the person's there because they feel bad.
Lyle Hurd: Absolutely.
Jim Lavalle: They need to feel better. Now, from our standpoint, we want to educate people and show them that there's a better path they can go on. Doesn't mean they might not still need a drug in their lives, but can we reduce the amount of drugs, can we reduce the amount of side effects. And maybe, if we're lucky, and they're already on several meds, maybe we can even get them off their medications, if we can teach them enough about how to take care of themselves.
Lyle Hurd: Great. Thank you very much.
Jim Lavalle: Thanks a much.
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