Medicine for healthy people - a sick idea?

In recent years the consumption of life style regulating medicine has increased considerably; remedies against smoking, obesity, depression and impotence, for instance. And new medicine is on its way, including pills against shopping and pills that can improve bad mood, memory and performance.

Simultaneously with the growing supply of medication the Danes' attitude towards medicine seems to change. Apparently more and more people think that if the drug is there and it can improve your life style why not use it?

The aim of the project “Medicine for Healthy People - A Sick Idea” has been to discuss the concept 'life style medicine' and the consequences of using medicine for changing conditions which until now have not been considered illnesses or diseases.

As a part of the project a conference about life style medicine was arranged at the Danish Houses of Parliament. The conference, which took place on the 21st of January 2004, revealed that there is no consensus on how to use the term life style medicine and that there is a risk of discriminating people who are in serious need of medication if certain drugs are labelled 'life style medicine'. Most of the participants agreed, that 'life style medicine' cannot be defined as certain kinds of drugs. It rather relates to the way the drugs are used. A drug can be called 'life style medicine' when it is used - not to cure or relieve illnesses - but to change a lifestyle. Whether it is desirable that healthy people use medicine to improve their mood, memory or performance in general is at the moment up to the individual - citizen as well as doctor - to decide.