Updated September 09, 2014.

Written or reviewed by a board-certified physician. See About.com's Medical Review Board.

I happened in my reading on an interesting  and informative article   written by Kevin Burke, the CEO and Founder of Wholesome One.  An article from Mayo Clinic revealed that at least seventy percent of patients are taking at least one medication. A poll was done in which people were asked if they had a chronic illness would they prefer a natural means of treating their chronic medical condition, or would they prefer a prescription medication.

According to this poll of 500 people, fifty-five percent revealed that they would rather utilize natural remedies compared to using a prescription medications. 

I find that in my own patient population, at the very least, patients want a discussion of all the means available to treat a chronic condition. Concerning high blood pressure, I find myself having many discussions about integrating a "natural remedy" for the treatment of high blood pressure. It can be done and I have written a few blog posts concerning this, here and here.  The answer is yes, you can take natural remedies for the treatment of high blood pressure and I do use them in combination with prescription meds (when they are indicated). 

People are wary of prescription medications; they are wary of side effects of medications, especially some of the blood pressure lowering medications and pain medications. There have been instances where people have refused to fill their blood pressure medications because they had read the side effect profile that they had received from the pharmacist.

The flip side is that I have several patient for whom  natural means needed to be employed to help lower their blood pressure because they did not tolerate the different classes/types of anti-hypertensive medications due to their side effects. 

Are We Taking Too Many Meds?

I am asked this question often when seeing an elderly parent accompanied by their son/daughter during an office visit. In my opinion, the answer to this question depends on what the medication may be, the reason for taking the medication, and the risk/benefit ratio for taking the medication. One of the most common classes of medications for which this question is raised are the statin medications.  The question is how beneficial would such a medication be for an elderly individual? Their use in certain populations including the elderly has become a subject of much debate and controversy. 

Concerning high blood pressure, one of the good things about the newest high blood pressure guidelines is that the guidelines have been raised to either 140/90 or 150/90 depending on your own health situation and co-morbid conditions. Again, these BP goals have sparked some debate among health providers; for the elderly population I think it has resulted in less blood pressure medications being prescribed and allowance of a higher blood pressure, which has resulted in fewer side effects (including a decreased risk of falls in the elderly, which is a result of both low blood pressure as well as a side effect of medications).

As a health care provider, Mr. Burke's article reminds me of several things:n

1) It serves as a reminder that patients want to have discussions concerning natural remedies for their conditions.

2) Health care providers currently practicing and upcoming health care providers in training need further education and training in not only their awareness of these medications but also how to educate their patients on proper use on their consumption. 

3) Patients will research these natural remedies and modalities on their own and take them, afraid of telling their doctor for fear of reprimand. This needs to change. 

4) Discussions like this require more than the twenty minutes allowed for in most office visits.