14 DAY TRIAL // Nearly 70% of Americans presently take one or another prescription drug, a team of Mayo Clinic researchers has learned.
What's more, about 50% take not just one, but two, and some 20% cannot make do without at least 5 different prescription drugs.
The researchers say that, according to their investigations, the three categories of drugs most commonly prescribed to people in the United States are antibiotics, antidepressants and painkilling opioids.
Drugs meant to control elevated blood pressure were only the fourth most common type of prescribed drugs, and vaccines came in fifth.
These findings are a bit troubling, seeing how they suggest that a tad too many of the country's residents are in poor mental health.
Commenting on the findings of this research, Dr. St. Sauver argued as follows:
“Often when people talk about health conditions they're talking about chronic conditions such as heart disease or diabetes.”
“However, the second most common prescription was for antidepressants – that suggests mental health is a huge issue and is something we should focus on. And the third most common drugs were opioids, which is a bit concerning considering their addicting nature.”
Over the past ten years, the number of people taking prescribed drugs in the United States has been steadily increasing.
Reports indicate that, while in 1999-2000 just 44% of Americans took at least one prescription drug throughout the course of an entire month, some 48% made use of prescription drugs within the same timeframe in 2007-2008.
All things considered, it appears that women and older adults are the ones who take more prescription drugs than other groups of people.
“As you get older you tend to get more prescriptions, and women tend to get more prescriptions than men,” Dr. St. Sauver explained.
Whereas older adults are typically prescribed cardiovascular drugs, women appear to be the ones most likely to take antidepressants.
Funding for this research was provided by the National Institute of Aging and the Mayo Clinic Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery.