High Blood Pressure Meds Result in Lung Cancer

Flaw in "Drugs for Health" Concept Revealed

by Heidi Stevenson

15 June 2010

Lung cancer rates increase in the millions of people taking commonly prescribed drugs for high blood pressure. In a study reported in The Lancet yesterday, angiotensin-receptor blockers (ARBs) were shown to lead to 1.11% more pulmonary cancer. These drugs are prescribed to millions as a primary method of attempting to lower blood pressure, so these drugs could be causing thousands of cases of lung cancer.

With millions of people taking these drugs and 172,570 new cases of lung cancer reported by the American Cancer Society in 2005, study results indicate that a significant number of people who would have remained disease-free will succomb to lung cancer.

Of course, makers and sellers of ARBs dispute the findings. German drugmaker Boehringer Ingelheim claims that the results contradict their own "internal safety data". One must wonder, though, why they've kept such results quiet. One would think that they'd be promoting them loudly.

The Underlying Flaw in The "Drugs for Health" Concept

The inherent error is the use of drugs to suppress a symptom, rather than finding and dealing with the underlying problem. Modern medicine has defined blood pressure over a certain level as a disease, with the implication that it's treatable with pharmaceutical drugs. The concept is seriously flawed. If one steps back for a moment and asks why blood pressure is high, the story looks entirely different.

If the person is overweight, then circulating blood through the extra distance—which can easily be miles more—would require increased pressure. Looked at in that way, it becomes obvious that forcing blood pressure downward is not beneficial.

Looking for obvious effects from artificially lowering blood pressure reveals that the nutrients, oxygen, and waste removal blood provides is lessened. This point alone would explain dysfunction resulting from the presumed benefit of lowering blood pressure. That doesn't even touch on the toxic effects of the drug. Clearly, the so-called beneficial effects must have detrimental results.

It's clear that modern medicine does not respect the body's intelligence. Introducing foreign chemicals to forcibly change a biological function in an otherwise healthy person in an attempt to prevent illness is pure hubris.

People Told Not to Make Their Own Decisions About Whether to Take ARBs

This modern medical hubris is pervasive. It's so ingrained that it's now expected. Once entrapped in the medical system, people are converted into docile patients and presumed to have no right to self-determination. As a result of this study, patients are told not to stop taking their pills. Instead, one of the researchers, Dr. Ilke Sipahi, of The University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, states:

My message for the patients who are currently on ARBs is they should not stop taking these medications on their own because they have beneficial effects

The British Heart Foundation is closely linked to the heart disease industry, funding its research, including on animals. They claim that the benefits of ARBs are "well established" and help many of the "2.6 million people in the UK living with coronary heart disease". They urge people not to make their own decisions about these drugs, but to rely on their doctors.

Perhaps the British Heart Foundation should take a closer look at the already-known adverse reactions to ARBs. If they did, they'd find an array of devastating and life-threatening problems, including liver disease, kidney disease, excessive potassium, edema associated with the heart, blood disorders, muscle destruction, heartbeat irregularities, and urinary tract infections. According to the British Medical Journal, 17% of people suffer from fainting.

In truth, this study has shown only that yet another serious disorder can be induced by a casually-prescribed class of drugs. It's already known that many other life-threatening conditions can be caused.

The fact is that there is no known optimal blood pressure level. People are different. Blood pressure that's healthy for one person may be indicative of a problem in another. The fact that fainting—a typical symptom of low blood pressure—is a common result of taking ARBs should alert doctors to the fact that their approach is questionable.

Follow Your Doctor's Advice or Your Own Intelligence?

You always have a choice about pharmaceutical drugs. You do not have to take them. Your doctor is not necessarily right. In fact, most doctors follow the current fads in their profession. They're punished when they don't, even when it's obvious that they're causing harm. Those doctors who think for themselves are sidelined and lose their licenses. See what's happening to Dr. Sarah Myhill for an example.

Original thought is being denied to the doctors themselves. What chance is there that they'll accept your own autonomy? Nonetheless, the bottom line is that it's your body. No one else lives inside your skin. In any moral or ethical sense, the decision is yours, not your doctor's.

The knee-jerk presumption that non-doctors are incapable of understanding the issues and coming to rational decisions about their own medical care demonstrates the medical profession's hubris and a frightening presumption that only they can make your health decisions—especially in light of how little control individual doctors now exercise in the advice they give their patients.

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