Show 984: Less Medicine, More Health
The People's Pharmacy
Joe and Terry Graedon
4.6 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 5 March 2015
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Americans tend to equate more tests and more aggressive treatment with better quality care. This approach does result in more expensive care. The US spends more on health care per capita than any other country in the world. But we lag behind other industrialized nations on important measures of public health.
Challenging Assumptions
Many of our assumptions about modern medicine are driving up costs and covering up potential downsides to medical interventions. Dr. Gil Welch, a leading analyst of health care policy, challenges these assumptions. In our conversation, he explains why we shouldn’t buy in to the ideas that it’s better to fix a problem, sooner rather than later, and that there is a pill for every ill.
This Week’s Guest:
H. Gilbert Welch, MD, MPH, is professor of medicine and community and family medicine at the Dartmouth Institute and the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. He is also adjunct professor of business administration at the Tuck School of Business and adjunct professor of public policy at Dartmouth College.
His books include: Should I Be Tested for Cancer? Maybe Not and Here’s Why; Overdiagnosed: Making People Sick in the Pursuit of Health (with Lisa Schwartz, MD, and Steven Woloshin, MD); and his most recent: Less Medicine More Health: 7 Assumptions That Drive Too Much Medical Care. You can watch a seven-minute video about the seven assumptions he addresses here.
Listen to the Podcast:
The podcast of this program will be available the Monday after the broadcast date. The show can be streamed online from this site and podcasts can be downloaded for free.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Joe Graydon. |
| 0:01.9 | And I'm Terry Graydon. |
| 0:03.0 | This podcast of the People's Pharmacy is brought to you by Squatty Potty Toilet Stools. |
| 0:09.0 | They create healthy toilet posture for fast, easy elimination. |
| 0:12.8 | Learn more about toilet posture and health at Squattypotty.com. |
| 0:17.3 | That's S-Q-U-A-T-Y-P-O-T-Y.com. |
| 0:27.5 | We spend more money on health care than any other country in the world. |
| 0:34.6 | Is our high-tech, high-cost medicine making us healthier? This is the People's Pharmacy |
| 0:40.3 | with Terry and Joe Graydon. |
| 0:45.3 | American physicians have been taught that more tests and more aggressive treatment equal quality care. |
| 0:55.1 | But some of the assumptions we all share about modern medicine are driving costs up without offering tangible benefits to patients. |
| 1:02.9 | Have we forgotten the pillars of good health that grandmothers around the world have known and practiced for centuries? |
| 1:10.1 | Does their advice trump our ideas |
| 1:12.4 | that sooner is better? And there's a pill for every ill? Coming up on the People's Pharmacy, Dr. Gil |
| 1:19.4 | Welsh will tell us why less medicine may mean more health. First, this news. |
| 1:31.2 | In the people's pharmacy health headlines, |
| 1:34.5 | Peanuts have a place in a heart-healthy diet. |
| 1:38.8 | For years, Americans were told to avoid nuts because they're high in fat, |
| 1:42.0 | which was assumed to be bad for the cardiovascular system. |
| 1:46.0 | Then researchers found that people who ate more nuts, including walnuts, pistachios, and almonds, were less likely to develop heart disease, high blood |
| 1:51.5 | pressure, or diabetes. The more nuts they consumed, the lower their chances of premature death. |
| 1:57.9 | Peanuts have not received the respect that tree nuts get. That's partly because they're |
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