Hidden Dangers of Prescription Drugs: Are Your Meds DESTROYING Your Body?

Did you know that almost 70% of Americans take at least one prescription medication? And the side effects of many of these medications are going to blow your mind. You're going to learn about that and the nutrition deficiencies associated with them right now. Welcome to the Dr. Josh Axe Show. Each and every week I help you experience a breakthrough in your mind, body, and spirit.

And understand core principles and the science behind how you can grow. On today's episode, I'll be talking about the side effects of medications and the natural alternatives for healing. Every single medication or drug that's available that people buy and take today has a side effect that depletes your body of vitamins and minerals.

Every cell in your body relies on a daily vitamin and mineral-rich bath to perform its daily functions. And if your cells don't have what's necessary, they can't function properly. For instance, if your adrenals don't have vitamin B12, they don't function properly. If your thyroid is missing selenium and iodine, it doesn't function properly.

So if you are missing key vitamins and nutrients, it causes your organs to not function properly, creating disease in your body. And so it's so important that we dive into, if you are on a medication, Here's some things you can do, or here's some natural things you can do instead of taking a dangerous drug. So medications deplete your body's nutrients in at least 4 ways.

One is through inhibiting nutrient absorption. Many medications will take the place of a nutrient receptor site, and therefore your body cannot absorb that nutrient. The second is by flushing out nutrients. The third is your body will use nutrients faster by speeding up the metabolism.

And the fourth is most medications are toxic to the body, so your body has to utilize more nutrients in order to get some of the medication byproducts out of your system. And this can cause even more problems than the medication is there to solve. Therefore, the cure is worse than the disease. Now, a 2013 study found this: in America, almost 70% of people Take at least one prescription medication.

More than half of people, so more than 50%, are taking 2 medications. And listen to this, nearly 9 in 10 people, that's 89 to 90% of adults 65 years or older, report they are currently taking a prescription medication. Let's put this into perspective. 90% Of people over the age of 65 are on at least one prescription drug. So now I want to share with you some other compelling studies.

According to Duke University, most American men are taking prescription drugs by the age of 40. Most American women are taking prescription drugs by the age of 15. Think about that. There is a 25-year age gap between when most women start taking medications and most men. Why is it that most women are starting to take drugs by the age of 15? Birth control. That's why.

And so that is the biggest reason why. And listen, there are side effects of birth control, which I'll get into in a minute. But that is crazy that girls at 15 years old, they're not even able to drive yet, but they're already— most of them are on some form of prescription medication.

Birth control for women is prescribed for many things, whether it be sexual promiscuity, or it could be— could be acne is one of the most common causes, or it could be trying to balance out hormones or even depression.

There are many reasons why birth control is prescribed, but that is a big, big difference and something very damaging I believe we're doing to young women at 15 years of age already being on medications. Now, by 2026, prescription drug spending is projected to hit $875 billion, and by 2030, likely $1 trillion people will spend a year on prescription drugs.

I'd also like to point out that the United States and New Zealand are the only 2 countries in the entire world, across the entire globe, that are allowed to market their drugs consistently. They're allowed to market their drugs via television ads, on social media, on websites. Obviously, there's a bias there.

If you're able to— if you're a company and you're sitting there saying, like, what's the job of investors of a company or, or the executives of a company? To make money. There is a major, major conflict of interest where prescription drug companies' main objective is not to get people healthy, and it's not to first do no harm. Their main objective is to make money.

Remember that when you're seeing a drug ad, they're not trying to get you healthy. That's not the main reason drugs are created. They're created to make money. And this is one of the reasons why America is the most overmedicated country in the world. It's estimated that up to 30% of pharmaceutical side effects are the result of drug-induced nutrient deficiencies.

Now, I actually believe that number is much higher. This is an estimate. I actually think it's much, much higher than that. I think it's really Really, there's 2 main reasons why I believe that medications are so damaging. One, they're toxic to the body, and 2, they deplete your body of nutrients. Now, the other thing is these nutrient deficiencies can often cause additional side effects.

As we talk about, oftentimes the cure is worse than the disease. Now, I want to go through a chart here that goes through the most commonly prescribed and utilized medications and the deficiencies they cause. The first is antacids. Pepcid, Zantac, or Tums. These are over-the-counter medications.

They've been shown to cause nutrient depletion of calcium, folate, iron, phosphate, vitamin B12, and zinc. By the way, you can look this up yourself if you look up a— if you have a drug dictionary of the common side effects and nutrient depletion, or just go online and search nutrient depletion caused by A specific medication.

Now, I did the work for you here to go over this, but you can also look it up yourself. The next is antibiotics. Penicillin, amoxicillin, tetracycline, and Cipro are all examples of commonly prescribed and utilized medications, oftentimes used in children, very young children, even 2 years of age. Here's the nutrients that antibiotics cause, the nutrient depletions?

Folate, vitamin B1, B2, B6, B12, calcium, magnesium, potassium, zinc, and probiotics, also known as healthy gut flora. And so antibiotics, by the way, there are studies showing it also increases your risk of getting cancer and weakening your immune system and increasing your risk of future autoimmune disease.

So, so it— remember this, it causes depletions of nutrients but it also increases your risk of coming down with other illnesses, like you can see here, or like I shared here. The next is anti-anxiety medications like Valium and Xanax. They have been linked to depletions in calcium and melatonin. So they'll really affect your sleep and weaken your bones.

Antidepressants, Cymbalta, Lexapro, Paxil, Prozac, and Zoloft. They've been shown to cause deficiencies in folate and vitamin B12. We know folate is really important for reproduction, for children developing properly. Also, vitamin B12 is critical for the health of the adrenal glands and the thyroid.

So if you have a thyroid condition or an adrenal issue and you're just fatigued, antidepressants will make those worse. Antidiabetic drugs, specifically metformin. Deplete your body of coenzyme Q10, vitamin B12, and folate. We know CoQ10 is linked to heart health, so it weakens the heart muscle.

If you take an anti-diabetic medication, also depletes your body, as we talked about, of very similar nutrients, B12 and folate. Antihypertensive drugs used for blood pressure, such as ACE inhibitors and beta blockers, deplete your body also of CoQ10, potassium, zinc, Calcium, magnesium, and vitamin B1.

Anti-inflammatory drugs such as prednisone, hydrocortisone, and celestone deplete your body of vitamin C, vitamin D, folate, calcium, potassium, selenium, and zinc. So we know these anti-inflammatory drugs are really going to weaken your immune system. Listen to all the immune nutrients that deplete your body of: vitamin C, Vitamin D, selenium, and zinc, those are critical for the immune system.

So when you take some, and it makes sense, right? Part of your immune system is an inflammatory response. So when you take an anti-inflammatory, you're damaging and dulling down your body's response to be able to heal and regenerate. So of course, it's going to increase your risk of conditions like cancer and— Diabetes.

In immune, immune-related issues, being able to fight off a common cold or flu, you're going to be weaker at doing that in the future. Contraceptive drugs— there's many here, from triphasil to Yasmin and others. Contraceptives and birth control deplete your body of vitamin B2, B3, B6, B12, vitamin C, healthy gut bacteria, so probiotics, Magnesium and zinc.

And so, if you have a young girl who starts taking contraceptives at 15 years old and take them until they're 30 years old, okay, let's just— for 15 years, for an example, the deficiencies, the bankruptcy of nutrients is overwhelming of B vitamins, which are critical for energy and neurological health and liver health and really the health of all your cells. Vitamin C, your immune system.

Zinc for your immune system. Magnesium is responsible for over 300 different functions in your body. And healthy gut bacteria. Now, I want to share this from clinical experience. Remember, I ran a functional medicine clinic for many years and helped a lot of women with other physicians with getting off their medications.

And healthy gut bacteria was the one I know was the deficiency I noticed the most. When women would come into me and they would get get off their contraceptive medications, the side effects of yeast and Candida overgrowth were really significant, really significant.

And so it really took a while for their hormones and body to start to balance out, sometimes years to balance out due to the side effects of contraceptives there as well. Now, I do want to mention this before I get into the next medications.

Listen, if you are on any of these medications and you don't feel compelled or convicted to get off of them, in working with your physician, then at the very least, you should go and make sure you are addressing these nutrient deficiencies. Now, do I believe even when you take these nutrients, you're likely to have some level of deficiency of one of them and also some side effects?

Yes, but it should lessen it significantly. So if you are on, for instance, if you're on an anti-diabetic drug like metformin, you absolutely need to be taking Coenzyme Q10 And vitamin B12. Absolutely need to. Same thing, if you're on birth control, you really need to be taking a B-complex vitamin and a probiotic supplement and likely magnesium and zinc. You just really need to.

And here, let me tell you something that might surprise you. One of the other things I found is oftentimes the reason why people take some of these medications in the first place is because they're deficient in one of these nutrients. And so, oftentimes, we already have a deficiency, we're making it worse versus we should have just used the supplements in the first place.

Estrogen medications such as Premarin or Prempro deplete your body of folate, magnesium, vitamin B1, B2, B5, B6, B12. NSAIDs, that's nonsteroidal Anti-inflammatory drugs. These drugs, by the way, like aspirin, acetaminophen, Motrin, ibuprofen, they're the 15th leading killer in America today. That is significant.

Kills tens of thousands of people every year from taking over-the-counter NSAIDs like Advil and aspirin. They deplete your body of vitamin C, folate, glutathione, iron, and potassium. So NSAIDs have been linked to damaging your liver and your gut lining. Well, think about this.

If NSAIDs deplete your body of glutathione, your primary antioxidant that's related, that works with your liver, well, of course, it's going to damage your liver, right? So it's deficient because your body is using up all this glutathione to try and protect the liver from the NSAIDs, but eventually gets depleted.

And then when glutathione is depleted, it not only impacts your liver, it now impacts your cellular health and you will age more quickly. Did you know that? That is one of the side effects of NSAIDs, like just taking aspirin a day will cause you to age more quickly because your cells need vitamin C, your cells need glutathione, your cells— your blood needs iron, your cells need potassium.

When you create that deficiency, You will age more quickly in a lot of cases. Statin drugs, also known as cholesterol drugs like Lipitor, Crestor, Zocor, Mevacor, deplete your body of coenzyme Q10. That's the primary nutrient. And if you're on a statin drug, you absolutely must be on a coenzyme Q10 supplement.

Also depletes your body of calcium, folate, iron, magnesium, vitamin A, B12, vitamin D, vitamin E, And K. One of the things you'll notice here about the statin and cholesterol drugs is that what it depletes your body of is primarily fat-soluble vitamins like A, D, E, K. Those are all fat-soluble, so is CoQ10. And so, statin drugs, we know cholesterol is fat, it really is connected to fat.

And also, by the way, cholesterol is also critical for hormone production. By the way, I remember what my one of my first patient I ever had, first patient ever in student clinic. I had a man come in whose whose whose doctor put him on a statin drug, Lipitor specifically, and on a low-fat diet. And and he told me in the in the period of six months, he had lost almost all of his hair.

His hair got so thin. His muscles had wasted away. He had lost fifteen pounds, and he started getting nerve. Nerve pain. And we put him on a diet that was full of olive oil and a lot of healthy fats, and he was able to get off his cholesterol medication after just 6 months, felt like a new person. But a lot of times we don't realize these medications are causing serious, serious side effects.

Again, most of these I've just talked about the nutrient depletion, but also most of them also cause a disease somewhere else in the body. Yeah. And again, statin drugs, we know your liver produces cholesterol for a reason. It's your body's repair substance. Your brain and nerves, nerve tissue is made up of around 25% cholesterol.

So really, what I get so angry about with a lot of these doctors today is they're breaking the Hippocratic oath of first do no harm because they're not changing diet first. And if you'd make simple dietary changes and recommend supplements, there would be no side effects and you wouldn't do any harm. But, but we're doing harm almost every time.

Now, listen, I'm not one of those doctors that said there should be zero medications ever prescribed. I don't believe that.

I do believe there's certain medications at certain times for emergencies, but probably 90% of medications today that people are taking They shouldn't be taking, or if they get on it, it should be with a 3-month plan to get them on it for a short time and then get them off it as soon as possible, because we're doing things regarding mindset and diet and lifestyle that are going to actually get to the root cause of the problem.

Last one here, thyroid medications such as Synthroid and many of the other thyroid medications here, like Levothyroxine. Causes a calcium deficiency, an iron deficiency, and a phosphorus deficiency. Now, obviously, this is really going to weaken the bones with calcium and phosphorus and weaken the blood if you're on a thyroid medication.

So oftentimes, people taking a thyroid medication want to be taking an herb like dong quai or a blood builder and be eating things like celery and spinach and foods that really can help strengthen up their bones. So again, here's the word I would have for you. Number one, If you can avoid taking medications, avoid it at all costs.

Do everything you can with diet and supplementation and lifestyle and mindset to heal your body so you don't have to. If you must be on something, then do your best to address these nutrient deficiencies the best you can, because it will at the very least make a significant improvement and difference in your health. Here's the real solution here. Again, number one, identify the root cause.

You know, one of the biggest causes of people to come down with medical conditions, everything from hypothyroidism to depression to diabetes, is emotional stress and fostering unhealthy emotions. It could be relationship issues. It could be having a lot of worry in your life, stress, anger. All of those affect our organ systems. So that's one major root cause we need to get to.

Is looking at your emotional health and fostering healthy emotions. Another one, and this is something that causes a major energy deficiency, is if you lack purpose. Lacking purpose in your life can actually cause your body and cells not to be functioning at the highest level. Number 2, use natural medicine to heal allergies. If you have allergies on a regular basis, use local, uh, use bee pollen.

That's, that's local, local honey and local bee pollen. Advil and Tylenol, in clinical studies, oftentimes turmeric, boswellia, and ginger and rosemary have been shown to be just as effective. Look at antibiotics. There are natural antibiotics out there, such as oil of oregano, myrrh, garlic extract, and loads of others.

In fact, I would also put bacteriophages here and probiotics sometimes can help. Act as natural antibiotics. But there's a lot of herbs that fall into this category as natural antibiotics. High cholesterol, right? What do you do for high cholesterol? Adjust your diet. That's the biggest thing. Lower stress, adjust your diet, do a Mediterranean diet and an anti-inflammatory diet.

A lot of good fats from olive oil and olives, and then eating a lot of wild fish, grass-fed beef, chicken, lots of vegetables, lots of fruit. If you follow that diet, you're going to reverse high cholesterol levels. And by the way, sometimes high cholesterol is necessary because your body is trying to heal itself. It's not even a problem. Birth control. Do natural family planning.

There are so many natural ways you can do this and not have to use that. And of course, again, if you're taking birth control for acne, well then there you need probiotics, you need omega-3 fatty acids, you need B vitamins, and you need antioxidants. Yeah. You need to reduce stress, and oftentimes you need to support your liver.

But if you work with a functional medicine doctor, a woman, a young girl should never have to get on birth control for— unless you're taking it for pregnancy or for avoiding pregnancy, which again, natural family planning is the way to do that, a much better way. But if you're doing it for something like acne, see a functional medicine practitioner or a dietitian or a health coach. Yeah.

They will be able to likely help you with that. Again, as I mentioned, part of healing as well as mindset, uh, prayer, gratitude walks, mind-body practices, meditation, connecting with others, building community, doing things you love, discovering your purpose and passion. All of these will also help you heal.

And by the way, if you want some more natural remedies, I wrote a whole book on this called Ancient Remedies. It's really tips of how to heal using herbs, essential oils, And other forms of natural medicine there as well. And again, listen, I'm not against all medications. I'm for people. That's what I'm for. I'm for people healing, people not having side effects, people thriving in their life.

And I know this, medications, think about it, they're synthetic chemicals. Could you ever just take a synthetic chemical anywhere in your home and know that, okay, there's no side effect whatsoever? Now, listen, there's a time and a place To take medications, but remember, they all have side effects that deplete your body of nutrients and then cause another disease somewhere else in the body.

And so, by the way, if you know somebody who's on a medication who needs to hear this, hey, please share this episode with them. It might just transform their life or who knows, even a few people save their life. So I just want to let everybody know, I am so appreciative of all of you who are on mission with me. To help people heal in their body, mind, and spirit.

So again, thanks so much for tuning in here to my show, The Dr. Josh Axe Show. And if you're not subscribed, make sure to subscribe, like, and share this, because again, it could help transform someone's life.