Doctors Warn of Too Many Pills for 'Non-Diseases' (2002)

So-called lifestyle drugs for baldness, erectile dysfunction are big business for pharmaceutical companies, but some doctors believe they are being coerced into treating a growing number of "non-diseases."

The British Medical Journal said on Friday a poll of its readers had identified almost 200 conditions that are not real sicknesses -- ranging from allergies to jet lag -- as more and more ordinary life conditions are redefined as medical problems.

The findings are controversial, with a number of doctors questioning whether debilitating conditions such as obesity and chronic fatigue syndrome -- also known as ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis) -- are true illnesses.

British and Australian medics writing in the influential journal said some drug companies were "disease-mongering" by widening the boundaries of treatable diseases in order to boost their markets.

BMJ editor Richard Smith said it was easy to create new diseases out of many of life's normal processes, such as aging and sexuality. The challenge was to get the balance right between the under-treatment of some conditions and the over-treatment of others.

" The concept of what is and what is not a disease is extremely slippery." he wrote in an edition of the influential journal devoted to the subject.

In the past 10 years, lifestyle drugs -- which improve the quality of life or alleviate the symptoms of old age -- have grown into a multibillion dollar business for pharmaceutical companies.

Advances in genetics may aggravate matters, since genomic science may soon define us all as patients, in need of correction for genetic "defects," which predispose us to certain diseases.

对于制药公司来说，如今这些所谓的治疗秃头、阳痿的药品是他们的主要生意来源，但是一些医生认为其实这样的药物正在被用来治疗越来越多"不是病"的病。

《英国医学杂志》4月19日刊登了一项读者调查结果，这项调查定义了大约200种还没有构成疾病的身体状况，其中包括了从过敏到飞行疲劳症的各种状况。生活中越来越多的普通状况被重新定义为健康问题。

这些发现很具争议性，因为有一些医生对这个问题持怀疑态度，认为身体的不健康状态，例如过度肥胖和慢性疲劳综合症（亦称ME--myalgic encephalomyelitis）并非真正意义上的疾病。

英国和澳大利亚的一些医生在《英国医学杂志》这份颇具影响力的刊物上发表文章说，一些制药公司事实上正在"传播疾病"，因为他们为了拓展市场不惜夸大了可治疗性疾病的范围。

《英国医学杂志》编辑理查德·史密斯说，生命中的一些常规过程中很容易形成新的疾病，例如年龄的增长和性生活等等，都可能会成为新的病因。而医学界所面临的挑战就是在对待这种非疾病状态的态度上如何在听之任之和过分治疗之间达到完美的平衡。

对于这个研究课题，史密斯在《英国医学杂志》种写道："现在疾病和非疾病的界限已经非常模糊了。"

过去的10年中，人们用以提高生活质量或者延缓老龄症状的生活用药已经为制药公司赚取了数十亿美元的利润。

遗传学上的进展可能会让这种情况进一步恶化，因为有可能很快遗传学的种种理论就会强行把所有人都诊断成为有着某种先天遗传"缺陷"的病人而急需治疗。