At one point I binge-watched a big bunch of "the last days of (such-and-such celebrity)" YouTube videos, which are, actually, often quite interesting for some reason.
I noticed one common theme in most of these early deaths, something that isn't actually any surprise to anybody, but which nevertheless people just tend to shrug off. And that's the amount of prescription and over-the-counter meds that these celebrities stuffed themselves copious amounts with, pretty much as a matter of course. While these drugs rarely directly have caused early deaths of these people, in many cases they were quite arguably contributing factors.
This got me thinking how in many countries taking over-the-counter pills like candy has been normalized for decades (probably since all the way back to the 1950's, if not even earlier). Somehow we have, for a large part, become a world-wide culture where we tend to think of over-the-counter prescription-free meds as "safe", and many people take them without a care in the world, for the most minor of things.
Slept a bit poorly and have a very mild headache? Just pop that pain med pill or two. Feel a bit sick in the stomach? Just pop a pill. Have a mild fever? Definitely pills! Pills, pills, pills.
Indeed, I have read accounts of people who are, in a manner of speaking, kind of psychologically "addicted" to all kinds of over-the-counter pills. Not that in they feel a compulsion to take them, but in the sense that they have accustomed themselves to regularly just take them until it has become a deeply-ingrained habit and second nature. Just pop that headache-relieving pill or two in the morning, every morning, as a part of your morning routine... even if you don't have any kind of headache.
Many people are hooked to even stronger meds, and swallow them on a regular basis, perhaps to the point of even actually having a real psychological (if not even outright physical) addiction to them. (It becomes an actual psychological addiction when not taking them causes withdrawal symptoms, like anxiety, stress or even physical pain, like a headache, which immediately gets alleviated when taking the pill once again.)
In the cases of the celebrities mentioned above, it's almost a given: Almost all of them were taking a cocktail of pills, oftentimes quite strong prescription meds at that.
This is not a good idea, and any medical doctor and professional will tell you this. You shouldn't be taking even non-prescription over-the-counter meds if you don't actually need them, out of habit. In fact, you should be avoiding taking them even if your symptoms are very mild (eg. a very mild headache that will go away on its own in an hour anyway.)
This is because no drug is 100% safe. Every single drug has negative side effects, and all of them stress your body.
They most prominently stress the liver, which in our modern world full of pollution, contaminants, preservatives, food additives and all sorts of substances that we can't really avoid even if we wanted to, is already stressed enough. You shouldn't be adding even more stress to your liver than it already has to endure!
This is not a minor inconsequential thing. Our livers are demonstrably stressed with all kinds of pollutants that we can't avoid in our modern world, much more than hundreds of years ago. They are already working at full blast trying to get rid of all the junk that enters our bodies. They most definitely do not need even more of it in the form of over-the-counter pills. The more you take them, the more the load on your liver in addition to everything else.
And while the liver is the organ that most heavily feels the brunt of all that junk, it's of course not the only one. Many other organs also have to deal with all the junk, such as the kidneys.
And yes, the "unneeded extra junk" that your body has to deal with does include dietary supplements (such as vitamin pills). While they might not be as stressful as eg. pain medication, they still are. Even supposedly "beneficial" substances, such as vitamins, can burden the body if taken in unnatural excess, in processed pure form.
If you have a normal varied diet, you do not need any dietary supplements. Throw them in the trash where they belong. The only thing they do is to add to the burden of your internal organs. And most definitely avoid taking pain medication and other type of drugs for minor inconsequential things.
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