People may have to take medication for most of their lives

[Compiled and published by New Sancai] New research shows that Americans born in recent years may need to take prescription drugs for half their lives.

For men born in 2019, this represents approximately 48% of their lifetime. Studies have found that for women, this takes up 60% of their lives.

Jessica., associate professor of sociology and demography at Penn State University. "People are now expected to spend more years taking prescription drugs than they did in their first marriage, entering education or participating in the labor market," said Jessica Ho, a co-author of the study.

Associate Professor Ho added in a university press release: "We need to recognize the central role that prescription drugs play in our lives."

Associate Professor Ho studied this using surveys from 1996 to 2019 by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These surveys include information on a selection of approximately 15,000 households each year. Data are collected every five months.

Nearly 70% of respondents agreed to have AHRQ and CDC verify their prescription drugs with their pharmacy, which greatly improves accuracy.

Associate Professor Ho also used death data from the National Center for Health Statistics and the Human Mortality Database to estimate the life expectancy of Americans born in 2019.

She found that most American men start taking prescription drugs by age 40. Most American women are 15.

Boys born in 2019 are expected to take prescription drugs for about 37 years, while girls are expected to be on prescription drugs for about 47.5 years.

"We found that women start taking prescription medications earlier than men, some of which are related to birth control and hormonal contraceptives," Associate Professor Ho said.

"However, this is also associated with women using psychotherapeutics and painkillers more frequently. If we consider the differences between men and women, excluding the use of birth control pills only explains one-third of the difference. The remaining three Two-thirds are mainly caused by other drugs such as hormone-related drugs, painkillers and psychotherapeutics, which are used to treat conditions such as depression, anxiety and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)," she added.

For men, common medications include lipid-lowering drugs and heart disease medications, but there are racial differences. Black men use lipid-lowering drugs at lower rates than white or Hispanic men.

"This is concerning because we know that black men do have higher rates of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and other metabolic diseases," He said.

Rates of polypharmacy (taking five or more prescription drugs at the same time) are high. While in the mid-1990s, most people who took prescription drugs took only one drug, it is now possible to take five or more drugs at the same time.

Ho noted that the long-term effects of the new drugs are unclear. Polypharmacy puts you at greater risk for drug interactions, side effects and adverse outcomes, she says.

This prescription drug use also affects health care costs, which reached $335 billion in the United States in 2018. By 2026, spending is expected to reach as high as $875 billion. About 14% of prescription drug expenditures are out-of-pocket, the report said.

"This paper is not an attempt to explain the pros and cons of using prescription drugs," Associate Professor He said. “Clearly, they play a role in treating many diseases, but there are growing concerns about whether too much is being used. Numerous studies show that Americans have poorer health and live longer than their counterparts in other high-income countries. Short. Prescription drugs are a significant demand component of the situation. We found that prescription drug use in the United States was even higher than we expected."

The National Institutes of Health provided funding for this work. The findings were published Oct. 1 in the journal Demography.

(Compiled by: Zhong Daren)

(Editor: Jiang Qiming)

(Source of the article: First published by Xinsancai)