Doctors Warn of Too Many Pills for 'Non-Diseases'

So-called lifestyle drugs for baldness, erectile dysfunction are big business for pharmaceutical companies, but some doctors believe they are being coerced into treating a growing number of "non-diseases."

The British Pop Inflatable Sides Medical Journal said on Friday a poll of its readers had identified almost 200 conditions that are not real sicknesses -- ranging from allergies to jet lag -- as more and more ordinary life conditions are redefined as medical problems.

The findings are controversial, with a number of doctors questioning whether debilitating conditions such as obesity and chronic fatigue syndrome -- also known as ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis) -- are true illnesses.

British and Australian medics writing in the influential journal said some drug companies were "disease-mongering" by widening the boundaries of treatable diseases in order to boost their markets.

BMJ editor Richard Smith said it was easy to create new diseases out of many of life's normal processes, such as aging and sexuality. The challenge was to get the balance right between the under-treatment of some conditions and the over-treatment of others.

" The concept of what is and what is not a disease is extremely slippery." he wrote in an edition of the influential journal devoted to the subject.

In the past 10 years, lifestyle drugs -- which improve the quality of life or alleviate the symptoms of old age -- have grown into a multibillion dollar business for pharmaceutical companies.

Advances in genetics may aggravate matters, since genomic science may soon define us all as patients, in need of correction for genetic "defects," which predispose us to certain diseases.