In 2016, 42,249 people died from opioid overdoses, which comes to 116 deaths every day, according to the United States Department of Health and Human Services. In addition, 11.5 million people misused opioids.
But, in a nation that takes so many prescription medications, perhaps no one should be surprised. And one underlying cause of the opioid crisis could be the way we take care of — or fail to take care of — our bodies.
“There’s a reason why Americans feel that the answer to every health problem is a pill,” says Dr. Raj Gupta (www.drrajgupta.com), founder of Soul Focus Wellness Center and author of Wellness Center Solution: How Physicians Can Transform Their Practices, Their Income and Their Lives.
“It’s because we don’t really have ‘health care’ in America. We employ a ‘sick-care’ model. We only go to the doctor when we are sick. And then we demand that doctors prescribe something for whatever ails us, and if they don’t we feel like we wasted our time.”
Antibiotics became so over-prescribed — often used when they weren’t even necessary — that they started to lose the ...
