So-called lifestyle drugs for baldness, erectile dysfunction are big business for pharmaceutical¹ companies, but some doctors believe they are being coerced² into treating a growing number of "non-diseases."

The British Medical Journal said on Friday a poll of its readers had identified almost 200 conditions that are not real sicknesses -- ranging from allergies³ 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 debilitating⁴ conditions such as obesity⁵ and chronic⁶ fatigue⁷ syndrome⁸ -- also known as ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis) -- are true illnesses.

British and Australian medics writing in the influential⁹ 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 devoted¹⁰ to the subject.

In the past 10 years, lifestyle drugs -- which improve the quality of life or alleviate¹¹ the symptoms of old age -- have grown into a multibillion dollar business for pharmaceutical companies.

Advances in genetics may aggravate¹³ matters, since genomic science may soon define us all as patients, in need of correction for genetic¹² "defects," which predispose us to certain diseases.