The Big Pharmas – via Silver Buzz Cafe
Originally posted @ Silver Buzz Cafe. Thanks for the info.
So far in this series we’ve looked at: the top pharmaceutical companies (”Big Pharmas”); the many phases in the process of bringing a new drug to market; competition between the Big Pharmas; generic drug manufacturers and other health product manufacturers; regulations and price controls; patents; and the value that the Big Pharmas and their competitors and partners bring to the table. Today we’ll look at what critics of the Big Pharmas are saying.
A prevailing attitude about the Big Pharmas is that they make excessive profits and rip off consumers. That’s not surprising, as the top fifteen companies made almost $400 billion in revenues in 2008 and they’ve been raising prescription drug prices by around 9% per year, far above inflation levels and increases in Gross Domestic Product. In the early days of the current health reform debate they stayed on the sidelines. However, as it became apparent that there might be more price controls, particularly for Medicare drugs, they have started a strong campaign to limit or defeat the health reform bill, a move that has big implications for seniors. In today’s article we’ll look at that issue and other criticism leveled at the Big Pharmas, together with our own conclusions on each topic. We’ve grouped the issues to align with the sequence in which we covered topics, starting with revenues.
Excessive profits
One of the main criticisms of the Big Pharmas is that they make excessive profits. The world’s largest corporation, petrochemical producer Exxon-Mobil, made its highest ever profit in 2007, almost $41 billion on revenue of $405 billion, so its profit was 10% of its revenues. Pfizer, the pharmaceutical company that generated most revenue in 2008, made a profit of just over $14 billion on revenue of just under $71 billion. Pfizer’s profit was almost exactly 20% of revenues, i.e., double Exxon-Mobil’s percentage profit!
The pattern holds true across all of the Big Pharmas, putting their average profit against revenue percentages higher than any other industry. There isn’t an exact definition of “excessive profits”, but if consumers are annoyed when the gas companies make record profits, they should be doubly troubled by the profits that the Big Pharmas are making.
Let’s look at some other facts:
Since 2004, the global pharmaceuticals market has witnessed moderate growth across different geographies.
The market growth is expected to decelerate through to 2013 due to increased number of patent expiries and intensifying competition from generic drug manufacturers.
The global pharmaceuticals industry generated total revenues of $615.1 billion in 2008.
Profits rose at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.7% for the period spanning 2004-08.
The industry’s total revenues are expected to touch $734 billion by the end of 2013, representing a CAGR of 3.6% for the 2008-13 period.
The top 10 global pharmaceutical companies recorded revenues of $348.3 billion during 2008, an increase of 4% over 2007.
The net profit of those companies was $65.1 billion in 2008, an increase of 12.1% over 2007.
The Big Pharmas are making huge profits and they are rising at a steady, but slowing rate. They are all worried about the effects of projected revenue drops when current patents expire, but, in absolute terms, they will still be taking a much larger percentage of revenues as profit than other large companies.
The profits are made even larger because the Big Pharmas charge their customers in the United States more than they charge customers overseas. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the United States accounts for about one third of all branded prescription drug sales by volume (number of doses sold) but generates one half of the total revenue. A particular drug may sell for between 35% and 55% less in other countries than it does in the United States. We’re not talking about branded versus generic drug prices here. It’s the same drug. Many years ago the Big Pharmas claimed that the cost of regulation and litigation in the United States was much higher than elsewhere, so they needed to charge more here, but that argument no longer holds true across their major markets. As we’ll see in the next topic, US consumers and taxpayers are effectively subsidizing the Big Pharmas and getting nothing in return.Conclusion: We’re being ripped off!
The Research and Development Myth
As we saw in Part 2 of this series, it can take 10 to 15 years to bring a drug to market and the Big Pharmas spend between 8 and 20 per cent of their revenue on Research and Development (R&D). The process of bringing a drug to market is long and arduous and patents only protect the resulting revenue stream against competitors for seven to twelve years, so there is an incentive to recover costs quickly.
That’s the united front that the Big Pharmas present to consumers and governments. They claim that they need the money to fund R&D. Almost every time that you see one of their paid disciples being interviewed, they’ll trot out that line as soon as prices or profits are mentioned. The reality is somewhat different. First, it turns out that R&D is a relatively small part of the budgets of the Big Pharmas. It’s smaller than the profits they make and is dwarfed by their vast expenditures on marketing and administration. Around 36 percent of their sales revenue goes into paying for these activities. This is roughly two and a half times the average percentage expenditures for R&D. Critics claim, with a lot of justification, that the prices drug companies charge bear little relationship to the actual costs of developing and making them and could be cut dramatically without coming anywhere close to threatening R&D.
Second, the pharmaceutical industry is not especially innovative. Only a handful of truly important drugs have been brought to market in recent years, and most were based on taxpayer-funded research at academic institutions, small biotechnology companies, or the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Most of them are simply variations of older drugs already on the market, targeted at grabbing a share of an established, lucrative market. For instance, we now have six statins (Crestor, Lescol, Lipitor, Mevacor, Pravachol and Zocor) on the market to lower cholesterol, all variants of the first.
So, who does the research and why have things changed so dramatically over the past two decades? All of the fingers point at President Reagan and the Bayh-Dole Act, named after its chief sponsors, Senator Birch Bayh (D-Ind.) and Senator Robert Dole (R-Kans.). Bayh-Dole enabled universities and small businesses to patent discoveries that result from research sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and then to grant exclusive licenses to drug companies. The NIH is the major distributor of tax dollars for medical research. Before Bayh-Dole, taxpayer-financed discoveries were in the public domain, available for free to any company that wanted to use them. Now, the universities, where most NIH-sponsored work is carried out, can patent and license their discoveries and charge royalties for them. Similar legislation permitted the NIH to cut similar deals directly with the drug companies.
Bayh-Dole was a tremendous boost for the emerging biotechnology industry and the Big Pharmas. Small biotech companies, many of them founded by university researchers to exploit their discoveries, proliferated rapidly. They often carry out the initial phases of drug development, hoping to cut lucrative deals with big drug companies that can manufacture and market the new drugs. When a patent held by a university or a small biotech company is licensed to a big drug company, all parties cash in on the public investment in research, but the taxpayer gets nothing in return. At least a third of drugs marketed by the major drug companies are now licensed from universities or small biotech companies, and these tend to be the most innovative ones.
The Reagan years and Bayh-Dole also transformed the ethos of medical schools and teaching hospitals from nonprofit academic institutions to “partners with industry”, akin to profit centers for the startups and Big Pharmas. One very unfortunate side effect has been a growing and unhealthy pro-industry bias in medical research. Medical schools and teaching hospitals are putting more resources into searching for commercial opportunities and wild-haired professors are asking themselves why they aren’t as rich and famous as rock stars.Conclusion: The Big Pharmas are no longer primarily R&D enterprises concerned with discovering and producing useful new drugs. They have degenerated into massive marketing machines.
Imaginary Unfair Competition
The Big Pharmas are increasingly worried by the generic drug companies, but they are fighting back hard by: fighting to extend patent lives and decrease government regulation; trimming staff and relying on external research; making more from “look-alike” products, rather than new discoveries; moving manufacturing overseas; increasing marketing, both to physicians and consumers; and raising prices.
We’ve looked at R&D. The Big Pharmas claim that they are being unfairly hit by overseas manufacturers who pay their workers less and are legally able to offer fewer benefits. However, consider these facts:
Fact #1: Most U.S. prescription drugs aren’t actually made in the United States. Manufacturing has been steadily moved offshore, where labor and benefit costs are lower and labor regulations are much less strict.
Fact #2: Many U.S. prescription drugs are made in China, a country widely known to have the lowest quality control standards in the world.
Fact #3: Most U.S. drug companies don’t even run quality control checks on the drugs they import from China!
The Big Pharmas contract with cheap, low-end Chinese chemical factories to manufacture their drugs at something like two cents a pill. They then they import these Chinese-made pills and don’t even test them before selling them to U.S. consumers at markups that can be as high as $20 a pill! Lipitor tablets, that typically sell here for around $130 for a month’s supply, probably cost under $1 to produce and deliver to the pharmacist. Admittedly, some of the difference goes to marketing, but the rest is pure profit, mainly to the pharmaceutical company.
The FDA and the Big Pharmas repeatedly warn about the dangers of herbal supplements and other natural treatments produced overseas and sold by competitors, but they don’t seem as worried about manufacturing and delivering products that may use the same natural or synthetic ingredients and are produced in dubious manufacturing facilities from ingredients bought from equally dubious sources.
The generic drug manufacturers are clearly a threat to the Big Pharmas as long as they can get access to new drugs to manufacture. The Big Pharmas have fought back on the manufacturing side, but they still have significant R&D costs, albeit with taxpayer, academic and startup help. The smarter generic manufacturers are now starting to encourage similar R&D efforts by their own governments, so that they don’t have to rely on the Big Pharma’s “castoffs”. It remains to be seen whether this will lower prices to the consumer or result in increased greed on the part of the new generic/branded drug manufacturers.Conclusion: We’re being lulled into a false sense of security by the Big Pharmas, which are quietly cutting costs by relying on foreign, possibly unsafe, manufacturers.
Bribery and Corruption
One of the unfortunate results of competition, government regulations and price controls, and shorter patent life protection, is that unscrupulous people within an organization will often look for ways to bend the rules and increase the chances of turning a profit.
Some of the strategies employed by the Big Pharmas to increase their market share and profits are legal. They have dramatically increased their level of advertising to consumers over the past decade, though many organizations have limited their direct access to their real customers – the corporate purchase agents and physicians and who decide which products to buy or prescribe. The problem of free “educational” lunches/dinners and off-site events at luxurious locations became so bad at my previous employer that all such activities were banned, with decisions on approved medications having been moved to an independent panel of experts who used clinical results and comparative pricing, rather than pressure sales exposure, as their main criteria.
The rapidly increasing amount of advertisements and free “educational” material directed at consumers is doubly dangerous. It makes it difficult for physicians to treat their patients with drugs that their experience selects, rather than yielding to the demands of a vociferous and partially knowledgeable, or deliberately misinformed, patient. It also creates the impression that every condition should be automatically treated with a prescription drug, which is very often not the case. In many cases, for instance, a life style change can be much more effective, long lasting, less expensive and safer.
The Big Pharmas have a proven and unfortunate track record of resorting to questionable marketing practices and straight bribery, albeit some of it legal. We wrote recently about the record fines, such as the $2.3 billion one against Pfizer, for off-label marketing. In this scam, the drug company touts its products to consumers and physicians for purposes that they weren’t approved for, often with marginal or negative effects. The fines imposed on the Big Pharmas, unfortunately, are often more like a raindrop falling on the hide of an elephant, rather than an effective deterrent.
There is a huge incentive to delay the expiration of drug patents, so the Big Pharmas have found all kinds of legal loopholes to prevent the generic manufacturers from muscling in on their act. The Hatch-Waxman Act provides for an automatic 30-month delay while a court sorts out the “new” patent issues. In one famous case, AstraZeneca extended its monopoly on the blockbuster anti-heartburn medication Prilosec by filing a new patent claim describing how the drug could be sprinkled on applesauce for use by patients who have trouble swallowing pills. Federal Drug Administration (FDA) rules mandated that generic competitors would have to prove that their versions would behave the same way when sprinkled on applesauce, requiring more testing, causing more delays and preventing patients who could swallow pills from getting cheaper drugs. Until President Bush put a restriction on its use, the Big Pharmas could simply keep launching a series of claims, each resulting in an automatic 30 month extension of their patent.
Unfortunately, the FDA has been repeatedly linked to bribery. Not surprisingly, it was a generic pharmaceutical company, Mylan, that first publicly exposed the pharmaceutical industry’s influence on the drug approval process. Mylan suspected corruption in the fast approval of some pharmaceuticals and not others, so they hired private detectives who caught FDA agents red-handed. They were taking bribes in exchange for expediting drug approval. This resulted in the conviction of four FDA employees. There have also been cases where the FDA has allowed patent life extension for dubious reasons, reaping vast benefits for the Big Pharma involved. A person with suspicions would smell the scent of bribery in the air.
There have also been many cases where the Big Pharmas have been proven to have bribed generic manufacturers or alternative therapy suppliers to keep competitive products off of the market. In 2002, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a complaint against pharmaceutical giant Hoechst Marion Roussel, Inc. (now a part of Aventis) and the Florida-based Andrx Corp, alleging the firms stifled market competition by agreeing to delay the release of a cheap generic heart drug. The FTC alleged that Hoechst paid Andrx millions of dollars not to market a competing version of a Hoechst heart drug known as Cardizem CD. Andrx had developed a cheaper version of Cardizem CD but, according to the FTC, agreed to keep it off the market in exchange for payments of $40 million per year from Hoechst. At the same time, the FTC also announced a proposed settlement with Abbott Laboratories and Geneva Pharmaceuticals. The FTC had found that Abbot had paid Geneva $4.5 million a month to keep a generic version of Abbott’s drug Hytrin off of the market.
Although it’s not illegal, influence peddling in Washington is an ongoing problem, particularly when it comes to Wall Street, the health industry in general and the Big Pharmas. We’ve written extensively about the huge amounts of money that the health sector throws to politicians to influence their decisions. Some have received millions over the past year alone, as the health reform debate warmed up. The Big Pharmas are spending millions of Dollars a day to alter or defeat the proposed health reform bill, while threatening to raise prices by at least 9% in 2010, no doubt, in part, to pay for the advertisements and political “bribes”. The Big Pharmas are determined not to allow changes to Medicare to allow negotiation of prescription drug prices, a change that could save the government (i.e. taxpayers) tens of millions of Dollars a year and cut prescription costs for seniors.Conclusion: The Big Pharmas will employ almost any means, legal or illegal, to increase their profits.
The race to the bottom
This article could easily be ten times longer. Here are a few more issues to ponder:
In 2000, in the New England Journal of Medicine, Marcia Angell, MD, former editor of the publication, wrote about the conflicts of interest that abound between the author/physicians who conduct pharmaceutical studies and the companies themselves. Four years later, Dr. Angell wrote the controversial book, “The Truth About Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It.”
In 2004, a disturbing Washington Post editorial asked the questions: ” Should pharmaceutical companies have to reveal the results of clinical trials they conduct on their drugs, even when the results show the drugs to be ineffective? That’s the issue behind a discussion that has begun among the editors of the nation’s medical journals. Concerned that drug companies may be sending them only partial results from their clinical trials, they now want to set up a national registry of clinical trials.”
In 2004, the Associated Press exposed the fact that several of the “famous doctors [who] advised the government recently on new cholesterol guidelines for the public” didn’t reveal their financial ties to pharmaceutical companies: “Eight of the nine were making money from the very companies whose cholesterol-lowering drugs they were urging upon millions more Americans. Two own stock in them.” The Big Pharmas use Prescriber Reports, which are weekly lists of every prescription written by each of the 600,000 doctors in the United States to target physicians who aren’t touting their products.
In 2005, a New York Times article points out that “when the drug industry came under fire last summer for failing to disclose poor results from studies of antidepressants, many major drug makers promised to provide more information about their research on new medicines. But nearly a year later, crucial facts about many clinical trials remain hidden, scientists independent of the company say.”
In 2006, an MSNBC article exposed one of the Cancer Industry’s “dirty little secrets”: Cancer doctors are allowed to profit from the sale of chemotherapy drugs. One oncologist is quoted here as saying, “So the pressure is frankly on to make money by selling medications.”
In 2007, Sheffield (England) University medical/pharmaceutical research scientist, Dr. Aubrey Blumsohn, was commissioned by Procter and Gamble to test their osteoporosis drug, Actonel. However, he says he was denied access to key data, and that P & G then proceeded to ghostwrite “his” analysis of it. When he complained, the company tried to silence him. He wouldn’t be silenced, so he lost his job.Conclusion: We need stronger regulations, political campaign reforms and better enforcement to rein in the Big Pharmas.
Observations
The Big Pharmas affect everyone, but the people hurting most are the elderly. When Medicare was enacted in 1965, people took far fewer prescription drugs and they were much cheaper. Senior citizens could generally afford to buy whatever drugs they needed out of pocket. Seniors tend to need more prescription drugs than younger people, but an increasing proportion are reporting that they have skipped doses or have not filled prescriptions because of the cost. The industry charges Medicare recipients without supplementary insurance much more than it does favored customers, such as large HMOs or the Veterans Affairs (VA) system, that can bargain for steep discounts or rebates. People without insurance have no bargaining power; and so they, or taxpayers, pay the highest prices. It would be nice to think that those prices were fair, but they’re clearly not.
Like all big organizations, the Big Pharmas have exemplary tales to tell and many, many dirty little secrets to hide, or crimes to gloss over. We’re probably looking at the tip of the iceberg, so we can assume that there will be more evidence of the Big Pharma’s questionable practices, scams and crimes. The big question is – can we do anything about it?
What to look for in Prescription Coverage.
Originally Posted on The Hill
The pharmaceutical industry struck a grand bargain this summer with the White House and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) to limit its financial exposure from healthcare reform to $85 billion and to support the Democrats’ efforts. That deal has held uneasily since and Democrats are eyeing the chance to take a bite out of a long-time nemesis. Like in the House, Democrats are eager to require larger rebates from pharmaceutical firms who sell drugs to state Medicaid programs and use the additional money to sweeten the Medicare prescription drug benefit. A handful of Republicans such as Sens. John McCain (Ariz.) and David Vitter (La.) would likely join, or even start, any effort to permit the import of medicines from abroad.
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Universal Healthcare
The government is poised to get a form of universal healthcare put into law soon. The Obama administration has committed to passing this through for the 45 to 50 million uninsured Americans. I do agree that Americans need healthcare coverage, however we need to ask ourselves intelligent questions in order to determine if the answer is the proposed healthcare plan. We also need to ask ourselves what outcomes we desire for the short-term and long-term solution.
The first question we need to ask is, “What is the goal?” Is the goal healthcare coverage for all Americans? Is the goal to create a healthier living for all? Is it a combination of both or maybe a totally different goal?
In my opinion it should be a combination of both coverage for all and healthy living, however in any plan of action, we should be prepared to have short term success with a long term vision and strategy. Healthcare for all Americans would definitely be a short term win for those uninsured Americans (which some estimates put to be 65 million by 2014). Why wouldn’t we have healthcare for all American’s? We live in the richest nation in the world. Beyond the short-term, we need to think about long-term goals as well. How did we get to this point? A good illustration is listed via this link http://bit.ly/11EV4B (courtesy of PBS).
In reviewing the history and creating a strategy here are a few simple points to keep in mind.
1) Healthcare costs continue to rise because the demand for care is very high. The demand is high because our nation continues to make unhealthy choices in lifestyles. We have become a very unhealthy nation and so thus our medical need continues to rise faster than the supply medicine can deliver. This is basic economics.
2) In order to lessen the demand for medical care (remember, supply and demand, [lower demand = lower prices]) we will need to practice healthier lifestyles and make it a priority. But why would we do this?
3) What will make us practice healthier lifestyles if the government pays for all healthcare (I don’t think we will have incentive to make lifestyle changes)?
4) What is my incentive to live healthier?
The healthcare system we put in place needs to provide coverage for all, but also include incentives to lead healthier lives. These incentives can only work if they affect something that is truly important to people. For most this will need to be in the form of money. If people have “skin in the game” they will make better everyday decisions because if will affect their short-term lives (how much $$$ they have in the bank) as well as the long-term (we don’t get to a heart attack overnight, it is typically years of unhealthy behavior)
Once a healthcare system is established to incentivize people, the healthcare system should encourage networks to be established so people can communicate and network with a common purpose. Networking sites like www.rxmole.com (a prescription drug networking site) will enable people to share data on prices, healthcare and best practices. This will further help the free market to drive down prices. People typically look for the best prices on products and services.
The second question we need to ask is, “Do we really want the government to run a national healthcare program?” The government has shown time and time again that it is not capable of running many businesses in an efficient and effective manner. Don’t label me as unpatriotic with this statement. I love this country and wouldn’t trade my place for another country to live in, but as a former employee of government, I can tell you the question isn’t “How can I run this business efficiently and effectively?”, The question in the public sector is, “How can I run this business to give the best value to the public?” This isn’t an opinion, this is simply the government model of business. The election process forces this model to focus on short term goals (how can I get re-elected?) and neglect long term vision. It works for some pieces of government, but not for all. I agree with giving value to the public, however this question is much more subjective and less objective when it comes to running things efficiently and in the best interest of the American people. I would reference a recent article in the WSJ as a very well documented example as to why we don’t want the government running healthcare. The link is http://bit.ly/Tw2DH .
Pay particular attention to this paragraph. “…Or take Medicare. Other than the source of its premiums, Medicare is no different, economically, than a regular health-insurance company. But unlike, say, UnitedHealthcare, it is a bureaucracy-beclotted nightmare, riven with waste and fraud. Last year the Government Accountability Office estimated that no less than one-third of all Medicare disbursements for durable medical equipment, such as wheelchairs and hospital beds, were improper or fraudulent. Medicare was so lax in its oversight that it was approving orthopedic shoes for amputees.”
My suggestion would be to open up the process to the private sector to run this program and then place specific metrics in place that would be met. These metrics should be based on both customer service and also the overall goal of helping to make Americans a healthier society. Force these businesses into accountability for these metrics and create contracts that review performance on an annual basis. Private sector business would be a much better solution because:
A) They will compete for the business with other businesses
B) They will find better ways to administer the process (as long as the correct evaluation metrics are put into place)
C) They are not driven by the election process (which forces politicians to be more short-term focus)
If you agree, call your representative and tell them how you feel. If you don’t speak up, your voice will never be heard.
Bryan Jackson
RX Mole Co-founder
The impact of social networks on prescription drugs
The time has long come that consumers be given an outlet and a voice to communicate and help one another find the best prices and service for prescription drugs in the United States. The history of information sharing by consumers for things like drug prices has been non-existent. Consumers historically have made assumptions that there is little differentiation between drug prices at different pharmacies. This assumption could not be further from the truth. In our research we have found that the differences in prices for popular drugs can be as high as $100 to $150 per month. Many consumers simply don’t have the time or energy to look for good prices or the lowest prices on prescription drugs. Even if a consumer did have the time to call around and price shop, many pharmacies will not give you prices for the prescription you are shopping unless you physically come into the store and they “run your insurance”. Pharmacies will give you the retail price many times. This is obviously very inconvenient and essentially doesn’t allow for a good working model for consumers to really get the best price on prescriptions.
A new way of shopping is coming and we are beginning this with our site, www.rxmole.com . The newest technology has enabled communication to happen instantly. Social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and YouTube have started a movement that connects people in “real time” like never before. People are talking about and reviewing products, services and prices quickly via mobile devices and the internet.
As an example, as of 5/28/09, Ashton Kutcher (aka aplusk) has 1,940,446 followers on Twitter. In as little as 5 seconds he can tweet about a product or service and instantly broadcast out to nearly 2 million followers, who then in turn will retweet this information to their followers. In a country of just over 300 million people, you are looking at 1 person having an significant influence over 2% of the population (if you count retweets) in a short 5 seconds.
In the very near future, we believe that consumers will be participating in discussions that link them together based on their prescription buying preferences and desires as well. Our members will submit and request reports for 2 reasons. The first reason is because we all have a common goal, to find the best deals on the prescriptions before we physically get to the drug store. The second reason is we want to combine each of our efforts to drive down prices by making the market work as it was intended (information flowing properly from sellers to buyers). Working with information shared equally amongst the sellers and buyers is essential and the only proper way to ensure prices are not inflated or monopoly’s are not created. This information historically and today is only shared minimally by sellers and only after the consumer is physically at the location. This information should be shared early and often and we hope that www.rxmole.com starts this movement in the United States.
If you agree, let us know.
Bryan Jackson
Co-founder
RX Mole
Friday Fitness Tip 5/29/09
GO BANANAS FOR BANANAS!! Bananas are sometimes described as the world’s most perfect food. Bananas have no fat, cholesterol or sodium. A medium-sized banana has only 110 calories. A single banana supplies 20% of the U.S. Recommended Daily Allowance of B6, and 11% of potassium. Bananas contain three natural sugars – sucrose, fructose and glucose combined with fiber. A banana gives an instant, sustained and substantial boost of energy.
Research has proven that just two bananas provide enough energy for a strenuous 90-minute workout. No wonder the banana is the number one fruit with the world’s leading athletes. But energy isn’t the only way a banana can help us keep fit. It can also help overcome or prevent a substantial number of illnesses and conditions (see list below), making it a must to add to our daily diet. Eating a banana a day may help keep the doctor away!!
Depression: People suffering from depression felt much better after eating a banana. Bananas contain tryptophan, a protein that the body converts into serotonin, a chemical known to help you relax, improve your mood and generally make you feel happier. The tryptophan is also known to help people who suffer with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). No wonder monkeys are so happy all year long!
PMS: Forget the pills – eat a banana. The Vitamin B6 it contains regulates blood glucose levels, which can improve your mood and calms the nervous system
Anemia: High in iron, bananas can stimulate the production of hemoglobin which carries oxygen to the body tissue and organs.
Blood Pressure and Stress: High in potassium, low in salt, the banana helps reduce the risk of high blood pressure and stroke. Potassium helps to regulate the heartbeat, sends oxygen to the brain and regulates the body’s water balance. People who take daily water pills can quickly become dangerously low in potassium levels which could lead to coma or death. Eating a banana a day will help maintain adequate potassium levels.
Brain Power: Research has shown that the potassium packed fruit can assist learning by making pupils more alert.
Constipation: High in fiber, bananas can help restore normal bowel action.
Hangovers: One of the quickest ways of curing a hangover is to make a banana milkshake, sweetened with honey. The banana calms the stomach and helps with depleted blood sugar levels.
Heartburn and stomach ulcers: Bananas have a natural antacid effect on the stomach lining. The soft texture and smoothness is easy on the stomach of those who suffer with stomach ulcers.
Morning Sickness: Snacking on bananas between meals helps to keep blood sugar levels up which decreases morning sickness
Mosquito bites: Try rubbing the affected area with the inside of a banana skin. Some people have found it to help reduce swelling and itching.
Smoking and Tobacco Use: The B6 and B12, along with potassium and magnesium help minimize the effects of nicotine withdrawal for those people trying to give up tobacco use.
Have a Safe and Healthy Day!
First Post to RX Mole Blog
This blog and website is dedicated to those Americans who struggle with finding the cheapest prescription drugs or simply don’t have the time or energy in their lives to look for the best prices.
As I am sure you are all aware, we all struggle day to day with finding the best deals on items we need. I have worked in HR for 10 years and the consistent feedback I have received is that people can’t find the best place to find prescriptions at low prices. Often, consumers can’t even get a price unless they physically go to the pharmacy and have their insurance “run”.
Our company went to an HSA a few years back. The premise behind this type of insurance is that employees become better consumers of health care and have “more skin in the game”. The only problem with this is that there are few resources available to help employees be good consumers of health care. There are even fewer resources available for employees to be good consumers of prescription drugs. This is where RX Mole comes in. It is a grass roots effort by those people looking for the best deals on prescription drugs in a given area. People who will benefit most from this website are those on a high deductible type plan, co-insurance or uninsured. The service is free and open to anybody who wants to combine the power of a network to their cost conscious budget for prescription drugs.
We are in the beginning stages of putting together a website that will help consumers become smarter by enabling information sharing in a structured format. Our strength in numbers can and will push high margin drug providers into a more competitive game. A game that has long been dominated by retailers that don’t share actual costs and information until it is inconvenient for the consumer. If you have an interest in this topic, leave us a comment or register with the site.
Bryan Jackson
Co-Founder
RX Mole
