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Nearly all prescription medications have benefits that far outweigh their downsides, at least at a population level. I do understand to some degree the growing
by tomtheelder 3y ago
Nearly all prescription medications have benefits that far outweigh their downsides, at least at a population level.
I do understand to some degree the growing skepticism around prescription medications, especially because of some high profile over-prescription events, but the gains achieved in quality of life and longevity due to prescription medications are huge.
Put another way: I'm quite sure that the _overwhelming_ majority of prescription medications are a net benefit to the patient. This stat is in no way a bad thing.
- tmnvix 3y ago> This stat is in no way a bad thing. It could indicate a lack of preventative measures or excessively unhealthy lifestyles.
- UncleMeat 3y agoOr a vast improvement in medical technology enabling new treatments for previously untreatable issues.
- tmnvix 3y agoAlmost certainly both. The prevalence of prescription contraceptives would support your conjecture, while that of diabetes medications would support mine. I do find the statistic intuitively astounding given what I know of friends and family. Unless elderly or on the pill, use of prescription medications seems low. I am not in the US though.
- alex_lav 3y agoI think it's just kind of a lot to think about. Glass half full: medication improves quality of life. Glass half empty: Quality of life is dropping such that more prescription medication is necessary to maintain an average quality of life.
- natdempk 3y agoWe are living longer partially as a result of treating issues that would previously have gone untreated or poorly treated. Most things we treat with medication we treat because they have negative health outcomes otherwise like earlier deaths. Longer lifespan on medication = more percentage of life on medication, but of course people would typically rather have that than a shorter un-medicated life. I think there probably is a factor of quality of life dropping due to things like obesity raising in prevalence, but I think what I stated above could be the more likely/common explanation that doesn't require the "glass half empty" view. One other factor is we are able to treat more things each year than ever before. There are numerous diseases that have gone from death sentence to a mostly normal life with the help of medication. This would also influence the percentage statistic.
- alex_lav 3y agoI guess to me if you’re attributing a nontrivial portion of the rise in medication use to things like diabetes and obesity, you are agreeing that it is indeed a negative root cause for our society.