There is an underlying myth in popular views of health. You run across it so often, that it’s almost a given. It is: There is such a thing as perfect health.
The fact is, we are all biological machines, and, being different in myriad ways of genetics, development, diet, environmental conditions, and the like, we are all not “perfectly healthy.” We all have flaws, gaps, places we’re breaking down, where we’re short of the ideal.
Indeed, like a Platonic ideal, the idea that one can be perfectly healthy is unrealistic. All we can be is less unhealthy, have fewer diseases, parasites, chronic conditions, handicaps, flaws, whatever.
The corellary to this is the second myth: There exists a pill [treatment/medication/regimen/diet] that will restore you to perfect health. Since perfect health is a myth, so is the anodyne, the perfect medication to clean up any single condition, let alone all of them.
Which brings up the third myth: There exists a medication [treatment, etc.] that has no side effects. Medications have effects. We try to find medications that have more positive effects — or that have the desired positive target effect — with a minimum of negative effects. Sometimes, as with cancer treatment, we’re willing to put up with lots of negative “side” effects in return for the positive “target” effect of making our body so toxic that cancer cannot grow.
Anyone who’s followed the stories on hormone treatment in women is familiar with this sort of thing. Estrogen does X. Ah, but is also does Y. But, hey, this study shows it does Z! Idiot, but it also does Q! And so on. Each time, women are buffeted with the idea that either Estrogen Replacement Therapy is the One True Treatment That Will Cure All Ills, or that it’s The Demon’s Brew, a Guarantee of Short and Painful Life.
The reality is that it’s got some good effects, and some bad effects. We’re still learning about some of each, but anyone who’s looking for the perfect pill to give them the perfect body is living a myth.
So, to, today we get the report that (gasp) daily aspirin use may not be without ill effect. People have been taking daily doses of aspirin for years because of reports that, as an anti-coagulent, it helped stave off heart disease and heart attacks and the like. Which, of course, it still does. And, in fact, it also seems associated with prevention of colorectal cancer.
But a new study indicates that it may, in women, also be associated with higehr rates of pancreatic cancer.
So, immediately, folks will be in a quandary. Should I never take aspirin again? Nonsense. Should I cut back on the daily doses? Maybe, although a lot more study is needed.
But given that people are not dropping dead in the streets of aspirin use, it will probably turn out to be a compromise. Folks at elevated risk of colorectal cancer may want to continue taking it; ditto folks with heart disease issues. If further study confirms the pancreatic cancer link, then people will probably end up havnig to make a decision — which “effect” is more desirable, more likely, a greater risk.
Bearing in mind John Maynard Keynes’ observation that, “In the long run, we are all dead.”
Not that I’m suggesting doing anything stupid, mind you, but don’t think that anyone is going to repeal any of the myths above. It will all boil down to compromises, and accurately assessing risks, and realizing that perfection never quite exists.
