More Americans are taking prescription medications

[Guest guest]

More Americans are taking prescription medications

LINDA A. JOHNSON

For the first time, it appears that more than half of all insured

Americans are taking prescription medicines regularly for chronic

health problems, a study shows. The most widely used drugs are those

to lower high blood pressure and cholesterol — problems often linked

to heart disease, obesity and diabetes. The numbers were gathered

last year by Medco Health

Solutions Inc., which manages prescription benefits for about one in

five Americans. Experts say the data reflect not just worsening

public health but better medicines for chronic conditions and more

aggressive treatment by doctors. For example, more people are now

taking blood pressure and cholesterol-lowering medicines because they

need them, said Dr. Daniel W. Jones, president of the American Heart

Association. In addition, there is the pharmaceutical industry's

relentless advertising. With those factors unlikely to change,

doctors say the proportion of Americans on chronic medications can

only grow. " Unless we do things to change the way we're managing

health in this country, things will get worse instead of getting

better, " predicted Jones, a heart specialist and dean of the

University of Mississippi's medical school. Americans buy much more

medicine per person than any other country. But it was unclear how

their prescriptions compare to those of insured people elsewhere.

Comparable data were not

available for Europe, for instance. Medco's data show that last year,

51 percent of American children and adults were taking one or more

prescription drugs for a chronic condition, up from 50 percent the

previous four years and 47 percent in 2001.

Most of the drugs are taken daily, although some are needed less

often. The company examined prescription records from 2001 to 2007 of

a representative sample of 2.5 million customers, from newborns to

the elderly.

Medication use for chronic problems was seen in all demographic

groups:

• Almost two-thirds of women 20 and older.

• One in four children and teenagers.

• 52 percent of adult men.

• Three out of four people 65 or older.

Among seniors, 28 percent of women and nearly 22 percent of men take

five or more medicines regularly.

Karen Walker of Paterson, N.J., takes 18 prescription medicines daily

for high blood pressure, diabetes, chronic back and shoulder pain,

asthma and the painful muscle disorder fibromyalgia. " The only way I

can do it and keep my sanity ... is I use pill boxes " to organize

pills for each morning and night, said Walker, 57, a full-time nurse

at an HIV clinic. Her 69- year-old husband, Charles, keeps his

medicines lined up on his bureau: four pills for arthritis and heart

disease, plus two inhalers for lung problems. Dr. Robert Epstein,

chief medical officer at Franklin Lakes, N.J.-based Medco, said he

sees both bad news and good in the findings. " Honestly, a lot of it

is related to obesity, " he said. " We've become a couch potato culture

(and) it's a lot easier to pop a pill " than to exercise regularly or

diet. On the good side, he said, researchers have turned what used to

be fatal diseases into chronic ones, including AIDS, some cancers,

hemophilia and sickle-cell disease. Yet Epstein noted the biggest

jump in use of chronic medications was in the 20- to 44-year-old age

group — adults in the prime of life — where it rose 20 percent over

the six years. That was mainly due to more use of drugs for

depression, diabetes, asthma, attention-deficit disorder and

seizures. Antidepressant use in particular jumped among teens and

working-age women. Doctors attributed that to more stress in daily

life and to family

doctors, including pediatricians, being more comfortable prescribing

newer antidepressants. Dr. Sidney Wolfe of Public Citizen's Health

Research Group said the increased use of medications is partly

because the most heavily advertised drugs are for chronic conditions,

so most patients will take them for a long time. He also blames

doctors for not spending the time to help patients lose weight and

make other healthy changes before writing a prescription.

The study highlights a surge in children's use of medicines to treat

weight-related problems and other illnesses previously considered

adult problems. Medco estimates about 1.2 million American children

now are taking pills for Type 2 diabetes, sleeping troubles and

gastrointestinal problems such as heartburn. " A scarier problem is

that body weights are so much higher in children in general, and so

we're going to have larger numbers of adults who develop high blood

pressure or abnormal cholesterol or diabetes at an earlier age, " said

Jones, of the heart association. Dr. Richard Gorman, an American

Academy of Pediatrics expert on children's medicines, said more

children are taking medicines for " adult conditions " partly

because manufacturers now provide pediatric doses, liquid versions or

at least information to determine the right amount for a child.

The Medco study found that among boys and girls under age 10, the

most widely used medication switched from allergy drugs to asthma

medicines between 2001 and 2007. Gorman said that's because over the

last decade, asthma care has gone from treating flare-ups to using

inhaled steroids regularly to prevent flare-ups and hospitalizations.