We live in the "age of drugs." Not illegal, addictive substances, but legal over-the-counter and prescription medications. These substances can be just as dangerous as cocaine and crystal meth when they take the place of a healthy lifestyle, good nutrition and regular exercise.

High blood pressure? Pop a pill. High cholesterol? Take this. Sexual problems? A little blue pill will fix that. There's a pill for every ailment, but society, as a whole, is getting sicker by the day.

What's to be done?

Shane Ellison, "the People's Chemist," began his career as an organic chemist, working for the Big Pharma. However, he is so dedicated to natural health he was inspired to empower thousands of people to stay away from prescription drugs and encourage them toward natural medicine and better health. In this important segment, Ellison talks with Symposium host Craig Pepin-Donat about the "pill-popping culture" and its dangers.

Craig Pepin-Donat: To start, let's look at an overview of the health status in our society and where we are headed.

Shane Ellison: If we look at the big picture of health in America, we have to say we're the sickest we've ever been. It's attributable, paradoxically, to the prescription drug epidemic. We have an average of 14 prescriptions being written for every single individual. At the same time, we have over 200,000 deaths as a result of it. On top of that, we have 2 million people who suffer from what's known as drug-induced illness.

We're not sick from any type of infectious disease; we're sick from all the toxins that we're being fed by prescription drugs and, of course, our lifestyle habits.

Every single drug is known chemically as a "xenobiotic." That's just a fancy term for toxin. When you swallow these drugs, your kidney and liver have to process them. Over time, if you're using drugs just as you would take vitamins, the kidney and the liver can fail. There are about 19,000 people that die every year with some kind of liver or kidney failure.

Pepin-Donat: Shane, you often talk about how diseases are invented or created by either pharmaceutical companies or in some cases, the FDA. People have been conditioned to believe they can have better living through chemistry, haven't they?

Ellison: Absolutely. The business model of the drug companies is to create a need for drugs, when, in fact, it's our own lifestyle habits that are killing us. When you run these drugs through the clinical trial, you see that not a single drug is increasing our lifespan. We don't need the drugs, and we're not suffering from a disease; we are experiencing a lifestyle of bad habits.

Big Pharma likes to proliferate the lie that everyone's health is predetermined by genetics, when, in fact, genetics only play a role about 1% of the time. Even today's biggest killers, diabetes, insulin-resistance, and Type 2 diabetes, have nothing to do whatsoever with genetics.

It's a disease of lifestyle'a sickness of lifestyle. A lot of people will say, 'Well, my mom died of Type 2 diabetes. My dad had Type 2 diabetes, and their dad had Type 2 diabetes.' But in fact, we're just sharing the same habits. We do share the same genes, but the genes are just a loaded gun, and lifestyle factors pull the trigger. The typical person follows in the footsteps of their parents with bad habits. They have the same poor health outcome due to eating or being sedentary, even taking drugs.

Pepin-Donat: What are your thoughts about direct-to-consumer marketing, and how should it change?

Ellison: In the 70s, the drug industry needed something to proliferate their business model of inventing disease. They lobbied for the FDA to approve Direct-To-Consumer Advertising, and it gave the drug industry the right to sell their products directly to the consumer, to drive the consumer to the doctor so they could ask the questions: 'Is the purple pill right for me? Is the erection pill right for me?'

Of course, what's the doctor going to say? It's about 10 minutes worth of diagnosis, and the patient is out the door with their new drug.

It drives our 'pill-popping' culture because the children who grow up under this ad regime grow up with the false belief that they need drugs to heal, when, in reality, you need Mother Nature and the body's own natural health intelligence to heal.

Take it upon yourself to do your own research when it comes to your own health; you have to read. If you are obese; if you're diabetic; if you're looking for the best workout plan; or, if you're looking for the best supplement, then you can try natural health solutions. If you're seeing results, great, but if you're not seeing results then get rid of it and move on with your research process.

Everything has to be results-based. Don't take my word for it. You have to invest in your education, and then you have to apply this stuff, and if you're getting results, stick to it."

Copyright (c) 2008 Craig Pepin Donat