Rx 100 Quotes

During my research for this book, I discovered more than 16,000 patients die annually from the use of prescription and over-the-counter NSAIDs. I also learned more than 100,000 hospital admissions yearly could be attributed to GI bleeding from NSAIDs alone (Strand 173). Although I knew about the risk of GI bleeding and ulceration, the gravity of these statistics was never brought to my attention by any of the companies for which I sold NSAIDs.

Most physicians and patients believe disease risk is set by genetics. This is false, but also the most common excuse doctors give patients when we do not know the answer. We just blame it on genetics and hope you’re satisfied. Don’t be. We learned this from the studies by Nir Barzilai, MD on super centenarians at Albert Einstein Medical College. Studies on people over 100 years old showed they were all found to harbor most of the bad genes we already know about. What was very interesting, however, was that the bad genes were turned off in these people. The ultimate arbiter of a long healthy life is the expression of our genes-whether they are turned on or off. This is called the epigenetic expression of disease.