Taking medicine often means you are likely being robbed of essential nutrients because drugs can reduce your body’s stores of vital life-sustaining nutrients. It happens due to absorption problems, extra excretion of a nutrient, or interference of a metabolic pathway.
You probably didn’t know that drugs could do that, cause side effects that look like a disease. I bet you have experienced the drug mugging effect first hand. One example is with arthritis medications used for inflammation. These drugs mug you of magnesium, and a magnesium deficiency can lead to depression over time. Another example is with antibiotics…they are drug muggers for your normal intestinal flora and when they rob your gut of these ‘friendly bacteria’ you probably get diarrhea, cramps and nausea. If you can’t restore your intestinal flora with healthy beneficial bacteria, ultimately you may develop IBS or inflammatory bowel disease, or Crohn’s, or constipation.
Another example is with statin cholesterol drugs, like Zocor, Mevacor, Lipitor, Crestor, etc….when these medications work on a pathway in your body to suppress cholesterol, they also suppress production of natural Coenzyme Q10, which you need for muscle health. Without enough CoQ10, you could experience side effects like muscle aches, fatigue and restless legs syndrome… not to mention cardiac problems in the long haul. Well, yes, that’s possible only because CoQ10 is found in muscles cells and your heart is a muscle isn’t it? So when these drugs mug Co Q10, your heart, pancreas, liver and brain pay the price. Hundreds of medications, including hormones all rob the body of natural CoQ10, not just cholesterol busters. It’s all in Drug Muggers.
Women who take hormonal replacement drugs or birth control pills could be robbed of B vitamins as well as certain minerals and these deficiencies lead to all sorts of uncomfortable problems including low thyroid, weight gain and depression. Deficiencies of these nutrients also raise the risk for heart attack and stroke.
The list goes on and on.
I call it the “Drug Mugger” effect and this information is clinically proven and documented in the literature, yet it’s rarely discussed at the doctor’s office or pharmacy. Understanding the drug nutrient depletion effect is very crucial to your health and well-being and letters from people all around the world say that it has saved their life.
One simple way to replenish nutrients is to eat a balanced diet that includes foods rich in vitamins and minerals, including leafy green vegetables, citrus fruits, grains, nuts, seeds and…if you like meat, grass-fed, hormone free meats. But most of the time, eating doesn’t do enough to offset the drug mugging effect, especially when the medication reduces your vitamins by interfering with your stomach (think acid blockers) and so most of the time, supplementation of a particular nutrient is necessary to reverse unwanted side effects.
I discuss this to some degree in the last chapter of The 24-Hour Pharmacist, in case you have my first book, but it’s the entire content of Drug Muggers.
I invite you to use my search box, which is in the banner, and type in the term “drug mugger” to read free articles. I also wrote an article on corticosteroids, which are medications commonly used in auto-immune disorders, asthma and arthritis. To read that free article, click here.
Suzy Cohen, has been a licensed pharmacist for over 30 years and believes the best approach to chronic illness is a combination of natural medicine and conventional. She founded her own dietary supplement company specializing in custom-formulas, some of which have patents. With a special focus on functional medicine, thyroid health and drug nutrient depletion, Suzy is the author of several related books including Thyroid Healthy, Drug Muggers, Diabetes Without Drugs, and a nationally syndicated column.
