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| View Larger Image | Worst Pills, Best Pills: A Consumer's Guide to Avoiding Drug-Induced Death or Illness
by Sidney M. Wolfe, Larry D. Sasich, Peter Lurie
| | List Price: | $19.95 | | Price: | $13.57 | | You Save: | $6.38 (32%) |  | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours | | | | | Sales Rank: | 17391 | | Studio: | Pocket | | | Binding: | Paperback | | Number Of Pages: | 960 | | Publication Date: | January 04, 2005 | | Publisher: | Pocket |
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CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 16 reviews)
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Great Resource 
As a chiropractor, I believe in empowering patients to make educated decisions about their health care. At the same time, it's necessary to avoid making recommendations about patient's medications that could put them or the provider at risk. I have this book available for patients to look through at my office. I believe it helps patients realize that they need to be advocates for their own health in a positive way.
David Krohse, D.C., A.R.T.
Compass Chiropractic - www.CompassChiro.com
Clive / Des Moines, Iowa
May 26, 2008 | |
Worst Pills-Best Pills
I had purchased the original edition, many years ago, and was interested in a more recent listing with newer drugs now on the market. This product gives good info on how the drug is supposed to be used,info about the drug,cautions, and problems with other drug interferences.
April 22, 2008 | |
Unaffiliated with either alt medicine quacks nor Big Pharma
I reckon some "alternative medicine healers" wouldn't like this book, since it tries to remain objective, neither into the voodoo alternative medicine, or big pharma. Here's the article regarding "armour thyroid" that some people criticize, it appears quite fair and objective to me. Also it doesn't recommend Lexapro, because there is no other reason to use it over Celexa, other than enrich pockets of Forest Pharmaceuticals whose patent on Celexa is expiring
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Alternative Treatment: [top]
See levothyroxine
Safety Warnings For This Drug: [top]
Drugs with thyroid hormone activity, alone or together with other therapeutic agents, have been used for the treatment of obesity. In euthyroid (normal thyroid) patients, doses within the range of daily hormonal requirements are ineffective for weight reduction. Larger doses may produce serious or even life-threatening manifestations of toxicity, particularly when given in association with sympathomimetic amines (speedlike drugs) such as those used for their anorectic (weight loss) effects.
Facts About This Drug: [top]
In the first edition of Worst Pills, Best Pills, we wrote that natural or desiccated (dried) thyroid extract products, such as Armour Thyroid, should not be used except by those who have successfully taken it for years to control their symptoms of low thyroid hormone production (hypothyroidism).1 Remarkably, Armour Thyroid remains among the Top 200 drugs in the United States with almost 2 million prescriptions dispensed in 2002 despite the fact that for decades levothyroxine has been recommended as the better product for the vast majority of patients. Yet, the number of Armour Thyroid prescriptions appears to be growing.
Advocates of natural thyroid hormone replacement therapy maintain that products like Armour Thyroid are superior not only because they are from a natural source (animal thyroid glands) but because they contain both important thyroid hormones, tetraiodothyronine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3). However, in 1970 it was found that T4 was broken down to T3 in the body and that T4 given alone would give normal levels of both T4 and T3.2 Three randomized controlled studies published in late 2003 failed to confirm any benefit of combined T4 and T3 treatment compared to T4 given alone.3, 4, 5
The Medical Letter on Drugs and Therapeutics, an independent source of drug information written for physicians and pharmacists that we frequently cite, concluded that synthetic levothyroxine is preferred over other forms of thyroid replacement drugs. This recommendation was originally made in 1977.6
The fifth edition of the AMA Drug Evaluations-an excellent source of drug information before the AMA (American Medical Association) became so tied to the pharmaceutical industry-again made the recommendation in 1983 that synthetic levothyroxine is the preferred thyroid hormone replacement treatment.7
The American Thyroid Association clearly stated in 2003 on its Web site: "[T]here is no evidence that desiccated thyroid, a biological preparation, has any advantage over synthetic thyroxine."8
The United States Pharmacopoeia (USP) long ago established standards for all thyroid products from animal sources sold in the United States. Active thyroid hormones contain iodine and the USP standards allow that the uniformity of Thyroid Tablets USP, such as Armour Thyroid, is based on iodine content,9 not on the direct measurement of the amount of T4 and T3 in the tablets. The advantage of synthetic levothyroxine (T4) over natural thyroid hormone is a predictable effect because of standard hormonal content.10Desiccated thyroid remains on a list of drugs that are inappropriate for use in older adults.11
Why, after over 25 years of advice to the contrary, is Armour Thyroid in the top 200 most frequently prescribed drugs in the United States? One explanation appears to be that thyroid replacement therapy with natural thyroid appears to have become a niche market for unscrupulous complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) practitioners, some of whom are licensed MDs. Some of these CAM practitioners are also promoting natural thyroid hormone as a part of their weight loss programs. This is a dangerous practice, but it is not new.
The U.S. Senate held hearings on the diet pill industry 36 years ago, in 1968.12 During these hearings, the dangerous practice of "diet doctors" who prescribed thyroid hormone alone or in combination with the heart drug digitalis or amphetamines (speedlike drugs)-or all three together-came to light. In some cases, these diet doctors were selling these drugs directly to their patients.
March 15, 2008 | |
tntexgal 
While this book has some good information (but the accuracy of some of the prescriptions is questionable)...it can also be bad. My mother has ordered this book for years and as a result of her strong belief in every word that's in it - it almost cost her her life a week ago. She had stopped taking her blood pressure and cholestrol medications without the family knowing (because of the book telling her the medications were dangerous) and as a result almost died. Had she not have taken 2 aspirin when she felt the stroke symptoms coming (and called for help) she would be in a coma or dead today. Be careful if you buy this book that you realize most perscribed medications DO have some kind of side effect...but you must have confidence in your doctor and communicate with him.
January 13, 2008 | |
Armour Thyroid is a worst pill? BS!
Oh Please.... the author didn't do enough research on thyroid pills if he can even mention Armour and "worst pills" in the same sentence.
Yeah, I could just see me now if I didn't have a script for this "worst pill". I'm sure the medical community would like us hypo's depressed, balding, feeling crazy, tired, out of control triglycerides etc.. They would get so much more money telling us "it's all in our heads" (duh, our throats, too) and give up all sorts of scripts for anti-depressants, cholesterol, etc..
Knowing all this from personal experience I don't trust the rest of this book without doing research of my own. Waste of time!
October 13, 2007 | |
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