Prior to the COVID-19 vaccines (which I feel have earned that distinction) there in turn were two ways I interpreted that question. Ī frequent question I receive is what the most harmful medications in America are. Note: a more detailed summary of the tragic adverse effects of statins can be found here.
This seems absurd until you also consider that statins are also one of the most profitable drug markets in existence. These effects include cognitive impairment and dementia, personality changes, loss of sensation throughout the body and significant muscle weakness or muscle aches. In contrast, statins are notorious for causing adverse effects which affect at least 20% of recipients. Likewise, according to the existing trials (which are almost certainly biased to favor the pharmaceutical companies funding them), it was found on average that taking a statin for five years would increase your expected lifespan by three days. When you consider that many of these drugs are approved for much smaller reductions of the death rate, and that they frequently have a variety of other concerning side effects (e.g., triggering dementia), the absurdity of this situation (e.g., that this pivotal study never changed how we practice medicine) becomes clear.įor example, almost everyone is put on statins-especially as they get older, yet in trials evaluating statins, for instance to evaluate their effect on 50-75 year old patients’ risk of heart disease, statins caused a 0.4% reduction in the annual risk of a major cardiovascular event ( most of which are not fatal ) and no benefit in the overall death rate. In short, doing nothing except terminating some of the most egregious prescriptions for our elders (who often lack the autonomy to refuse their prescriptions) resulted in a 23% reduction in their death rate. Not surprisingly, there were also significant cost savings from withdrawing the unneeded medications.The annual rate of hospital referrals dropped by 18.2% (30% of the controls vs.The death rate dropped by 23% (in one year, 45% of the control group died whereas 21% of the test subjects died).After those medications were discontinued in the test group, when compared to the controls who remained on all of their existing prescriptions it was found that: These patients (who on average were on 7.09 medications) were screened for which of their medications clearly met the existing criteria for being discontinued (on average 2.8 per patient). One of the best illustrations of the problem came from a study that compared 119 disabled elderly adults living in nursing homes to 71 matching controls. For example, from 2009-2016, after 2 billions office visits were assessed, it was found that for adults over 65, 65.1% were on two or more drugs, 48.9% were on four or more, and 36.8% were on more than five (with the highest use occurring in the oldest Americans). This situation is even worse for the elderly, who both have more time to be put on an increasing number of medication and due to their altered physiology are also the most vulnerable to the harmful effects of those mediations. Since doctors are extremely reluctant to terminate existing prescriptions, this creates a scenario where people get placed on more and more drugs as they age (some of which are for treating the side effects of other drugs they are taking). adults are estimated to have at least one prescription and on average, they have 9 prescriptions filled per year (which can include renewals of an existing one). One of the more depressing parts of being an awake physician in the medical system is reading the drug lists of the patients you see and realizing how many prescriptions they are on that do not benefit them, and in many cases harm them. Note: this article is a bit on the longer end, but since the stomach acid issues profoundly affect so many people, I felt this article needed to be able to cover all the key points. A variety of safe and non-invasive approaches exist to address the wide range of (often unrecognized) complications from acid reflux and dysfunctional stomach acid production.One of the worst offenders are the acid suppressing medications, and their overprescription goes hand in hand with a widespread medical blindness to the critical functions of hydrochloric acid throughout the body and the actual causes of acid reflux.Many pharmaceuticals on the market are automatically given to large numbers of patients despite the harms of these medications often greatly outweighing their benefits.
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