Four-in-one pill prevents third of heart problems: study

Here's an excerpt from a video about double speak and it brings up statins.

It actually infuriates me that doctors try to bully people into medications that don't actually provide them a net benefit because the doctors themselves have been duped.

If aimed at society-wide transformations to built space, values, and practices, it could prove highly useful.

We once had environments in which the advice was essentially impossible to not follow. And though there were other health complications, and the issues of cardiac, pulmonary, and malignant diseases existed, they seem to have been somewhat less prevalent, even among otherwise susceptible (largely: elderly) populations.

Everybody can't go gangbusters on healthy diet and ample exercise. But those who can benefit. An environment which makes this integral to everyday routines helps massively. An environment which makes this a stuggle (viz: virtually all modern industrialised countries and practices to some extent or another) is an immense impediment.

Free but very, very hard because it goes against our instincts, yet easier than "stop being poor" because you're changing yourself, not your society.

They do have a good point, but the discussion is obviously more nuanced than that. People generally know that exercise is good for them, yet many/most people don't engage in it to a healthy degree. So some discussion of other approaches is appropriate. Let's not make "the perfect the enemy of the good" and all that.

And we don't need to be either/or here. For individuals that have even a moderately elevated risk, doing both is probably a great idea (and of course this is already broadly recommended advice). Doing just one would still be better, and most people would choose a pill over exercise. Still a win in my book.

My own brand of mildly pessimistic realism has proved reasonably successful here. Though it's involved adaptations. And occasional "what, me worry" parries.

This isn’t about sleep apnea, but heart disease and stroke from high cholesterol and blood pressure, both of which diet and exercise are the leading cause.

Poor diet alone is linked to half of heart attacks and strokes. Poor diet and exercise has a large negative impact on health. It’s not some made up conspiracy to shame people.

It's entirely possible that some diseases will be cured by pills, as they are just a delivery mechanism for medicine (and I would like to reiterate they are pretty great at that).

To your main point about treating symptoms vs. creating cures, yes its pretty unfortunate. But most likely, we will be finding cures for diseases one at a time, and there will always be conditions where we can only treat the symptoms.