Now, let me start by saying this isn’t about tearing down the drug companies. They are what they are: massive profit machines with boards, investors, and glossy PR campaigns that make you feel like they care. But the truth, as I see it, is that caring about your health isn’t part of their business model; it’s about managing your symptoms for life, not restoring your health.
Take Merck & Co., for example. They’re one of the biggest pharmaceutical outfits on the planet. They make a pile of prescription drugs, and some of their top sellers are statin drugs, the ones given to people with “high cholesterol.” You’ve probably heard of them. What most people haven’t heard is what these statins really do inside the body.
See, Merck has known for decades that statin drugs strip your body of a vital nutrient called Coenzyme Q10, or CoQ10 for short. Your body needs CoQ10 for muscle function, especially for the hardest-working muscle you have: your heart. When CoQ10 levels drop, your muscles weaken. Over time, this leads to muscle pain, soreness, and damage. In serious cases, it can even lead to kidney failure and, ultimately, death from toxic overload.
Now, here’s the kicker. In 1990, thirty-five years ago, Merck patented a combination of a statin drug with CoQ10. Two patents, in fact: Nos. 4,929,437 and 4,933,165. They had the science nailed down. They knew that adding CoQ10 could protect the muscles from the damage caused by statins. But they never brought those products to market.
Not once.
So, it’s fair to ask a few questions.
- Why didn’t Merck simply add CoQ10 to the formula and stop the damage?
- Were they afraid that reducing the pain and side effects might cut into sales of the painkillers they also manufacture?
- Why don’t they at least warn people to supplement with CoQ10?
- Why don’t most doctors mention this when prescribing statins? Do they even know?
- And why doesn’t the FDA require a warning label, like they do in Canada, where the connection between statins and CoQ10 loss is clearly stated?
You won’t find answers in the glossy magazine ads or the sponsored “health” articles, because those pages are bought and paid for by the same companies selling the drugs.
But here’s what you need to know: if you take a statin, every pill you swallow is draining your body’s supply of CoQ10, and that’s bad news for your heart, your muscles, and your long-term health.
Merck’s own patents prove they knew this. Yet, to this day, they’ve done nothing to correct it. That tells me all I need to know about where their priorities lie.
Now, before anyone gets the wrong idea, my goal here isn’t to make you angry at the pharmaceutical industry, the FDA, or your doctor. My purpose is to wake you up. Because when you hand over full responsibility for your health to someone else, especially someone who profits from keeping you on medication for life, you’re making a dangerous mistake.
Since the dawn of time, humans have maintained health using natural elements, vitamins, minerals, plant compounds, sunlight, water, and clean food. Our bodies are designed to recognize and use those things. Anything else, any synthetic drug, is treated by your immune system as a foreign invader. A poison.
Every prescription drug you take forces your immune system to work overtime trying to clean up the mess. In the process, you burn through key nutrients, like magnesium, zinc, B vitamins, and CoQ10, that are essential for healing. If you never replenish them, you begin a slow spiral toward chronic illness.
So, you have to ask yourself: Are prescription drugs destroying your health?
It’s not a comfortable question, but it’s one worth asking. Because the truth is, the human body has everything it needs to heal itself if you give it the right fuel. When you flood it with foreign chemicals instead, you’re fighting your own biology.
And that’s what I want people to understand.
You don’t have to be a scientist or a doctor to take back control of your health. You just have to start paying attention. Feed your cells the nutrients they need. Support your immune system. Use the tools nature gave us before the age of patents and profits.
That’s how you stay alive, strong, and free from the endless cycle of symptom management.
That’s how you reclaim your health.
That’s how you win.
~Herb Roi Richards