Majority of Americans Take Prescription Drugs

Nearly 60 per cent of Americans are taking prescription drugs markedly since 2000 because of much higher use of almost every type of medication, including antidepressants and treatments for high cholesterol and diabetes.

According to a study published on Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers found out that the prescription drug usage is mostly widespread amongst people aged 20 and older and has increased to almost about 59 percent in recent years. During the same period, the percentage of people taking five or more prescription drugs nearly doubled to 15 percent from 8 percent. Researchers have highlighted eight of the ten most commonly used drugs in the United States for hypertension, heart diseases, diabetes and other factors of the cardio metabolic syndrome.

Elizabeth Kantor, a co-author of the study and epidemiologist at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, stated the notable rise doesn’t necessarily represent a troubling trend. While she said it’s of vital importance to be conscientious about the prescribing of medications, the data may suggest health care has become more approachable.

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We want to be treating people who need to be treated. Our use of certain drugs might increase as certain conditions, or access to care improves,” Kantor said. “But at the same time, it’s also important to be cautious about it.”

The authors also expect the data to stimulate and encourage further research from different angles on the matter. “The population is getting older, but that doesn’t explain it”, Kantor said. The pattern looks more related to obesity, which is steadily rising, More than two-thirds of the adult U.S. population is overweight or obese, and many suffer the heart disease, diabetes and other metabolic disorders that go along with being too heavy.

And more people are taking five or more drugs at once. In 1999, 8.2 percent of adults did that. In 2011, 15 percent of adults took more than five drugs. “This is particularly notable among older adults 65 and older,” Kantor said. That’s 39 percent of the age group. People are also taking antidepressants and proton pump inhibitors, used to treat acid reflux disease, Kantor’s team found. Acid reflux can be related to obesity and poor diet. The single most popular drug is Zocor, a cholesterol-lowering drug in a class called statins, said Elizabeth Kantor.

Her team used national surveys of more than 37,000 adults to find that the percentage of people taking prescription drugs rose from 51 percent of the adult population in 1999 to 59 percent in 2011. Kantor and her colleagues based their findings on data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which involves a sample of about 5,000 people each year who reflect the U.S. population. In the survey, people were asked about their use of prescription drugs in the previous 30 days.

“There’s so much going on in each area, it’s hard to draw concrete conclusions,” Kantor said. “Each drug class stands on its own.”

The country’s aging population would seem to be one obvious explanation, she noted. Yet after researchers adjusted for age, the trends toward increased prescription use held true.

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