Dr. Andrew Weil makes some good points contrasting plant's complex combination of molecules with the current single molecule  approach to drug discovery.

Did you know big drug companies spend more on marketing than they do on research and development?  Maybe you think it's the price we pay for progress.  Think again...  There's a simple reason Big Pharma spends much more on advertising patented prescription drugs when generics, natural supplements, and lifestyle changes are almost always less expensive and sometimes more effective.

Dr. Andrew Weill discusses the role Direct to Consumer advertising, an "Only in America" phenomena (if we exclude New Zealand), plays in distorting the US health care culture.

Give his position some thought.

The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reported a very large meta-study a few months ago an the effect of saturated fats on cardiovascular disease (CVD), coronary heart disease (CHD), and stroke..  Dr. Andrew Weill brought it to our attention here. 

Many people trust "drugs" and distrust "nutritional supplements" (while they also ignore the effects of the "food" they put down their throats).  But everything in the material world is made of molecules - Viagra, Vitamin C, BMWs, bowling balls, water, salt... and you - for example.  Why should the molecules in food and natural supplements be treated as somehow less "real" and more unimportant than prescription drugs?

Tens of billions of dollars are spent every year to convince us that the molecules in prescription drugs are always somehow more special.  Many are very useful.  Life-enhancing - or even life-saving.  But you'd certainly die in time if you had no source Vitamin C in your diet.  You'd lose your sight without a source of Vitamin A.  Your body is a biochemical machine requiring raw materials.  Molecules are the raw materials.

There is an economic reason why drugs are advertized and expensive and so many supplements are not.  Drugs are patented, regulated by the government, and prescribed by doctors.  Most supplements are not.

But this is not the standard worldwide.  In many countries, supplements require a prescription.  Because they work.

Funny how people compartmentalize and label.  Because molecules are molecules.