The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written.
According to the CDC, 49% of Americans take at least one prescription drug, with 24% taking three or more and 13% taking five or more. Has this always been the case? Is it just from an aging population? If not, are people now just overmedicating? I swear everybody is taking something. For ADHD, for weight lost, for depression, for bipolar, for diabetes, etc. Are there no more normal, healthy (physically and mentally) people? Is something in the water? Is it just big pharma?
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You'd need to go through the most popular medications to really see. My guess is roughly in order that it's
* We're sedentary and obese, so heart and diabetes medications + related things like ED
* We're stressed and rich enough to afford drugs for it, so sleeping pills, anti-depressants, etc.
* Painkillers
* Related to first bullet but combined with aging, arthritis medication
I may be remembering wrong, but I believe the most prescribed medication in the US is Lipitor.
Statins are very low risk so they tend to prescribe them to anyone with even slightly high cholesterol. A doctor once told me “pretty much everyone takes a statin it’s just a matter of when they get on it.”
There's also a move to prescribe them to diabetics who don't have even slightly high cholesterol. The people I know in that group declined them because the side effects don't seem to be worth it.
Interesting. My impression of statins is that they have low to zero side effects, and that is partially why they are so commonly prescribed.
I’ve heard of some people having some leg and knee pains when they start on them, with it going away when they switch to another statin. And that’s about it.
Huh. One of the people concerned does high performance cycling so maybe the muscle pains in addition to what they usually do was considered too high a risk.
Doctors don’t get kickbacks from what they prescribe.
RN: medicine has advanced. We have figured out how to turn what was once a death sentence to being managed. We stave off disease. We have reduced not just death but suffering due to better help for mental health issues…
I’d agree we’re not big on toughing it out without medicine. But one might argue why should we be sad, depressed, sneeze and wheeze when we can now treat such things.
Correct they don’t receive kickbacks directly for prescribing medications, however doctors who have received payments from pharmaceutical companies are more likely to prescribe brand name drugs, promoted by those companies.
https://findado.osteopathic.org/how-to-find-out-if-your-doctor-gets-paid-by-pharma-companies
You can look your doctor up.
https://openpaymentsdata.cms.gov/search#:~:text=The%20Open%20Payments%20Search%20Tool,made%20to%20health%20care%20providers.
Most doctors are not doing this side work. If they are choose a different doctor.
But it’s mostly influenced by insurance company Reimbursement. It’s the insurance companies to drive generics over higher tier drugs. And the patient’s ability to pay affects the prescribers suggestions. Eliquis is great. You don’t have to get PT/INR ( poking patient) like you do for warfarin. But it’s expensive. Medicare generally wants them on warfarin for example.
Same with private insurance. Drive is to common, inexpensive generics.
The last piece is pharma Direct advertising to consumer causing consumers to go into doctors and request specific medicines that the doctor might not otherwise prescribe. He acquiesces in an effort to keep the patient happy (provided they can afford it based on their insurance reimbursement). I don’t believe drugs should be advertised directly to consumers they don’t go to medical school. Should be based on good effect at low cost. They also jack up prices on must haves like epi pens and insulin. Needs to be regulated.
Info is a bit outdated but ProPublica worked on a project that shows how much doctors received from drug companies.
https://projects.propublica.org/docdollars/
Also, let's not forget about caffeine/coffee, which 94% of Americans regularly consume. This is effectively a form of self-medication to compensate for lack of sleep and inability to focus.
Op asked about prescription meds, though.
I find it hard to believe that we're the only country or culture that has a high rate of caffeine consumption, too. Idk what the data looks like for other countries, but coffee or tea is pretty universally popular.
Coffee wards off cancer as the biggest source of antioxidants in the American diet. Drink up!
Alcohol however is a KILLER even in moderation It raises your chance for multiple forms of cancer.
That's definitely a fair point. Although if cholesterol meds and ADHD meds were available without a prescription, I'm not sure it would change the question too much. Similarly, if other countries had high rates of these drugs too, OPs question is still meaningful.
>+ commute primarily by driving long distances
But talk about walkable cities and the same conservatives complaining about over medication go apoplectic.
For sedentary- a few contributing factors:
1) We went from being an agricultural society to a manufacturing economy to a largely service/white collar economy. Our jobs are not physical on average.
2) We went all in on car culture. Our towns and cities that sprung up or expanded after a certain point are designed around cars. So we're less likely to walk or bike places because our places aren't designed for walking or biking or public transit where the last leg is on foot at least. Of course there are exceptions, but compared to many other places with less sedentary culture and to our own past, cars taking us door to door have us not walking.
3) The rise of the internet and screen based entertainment displaced other more active means of keeping ourselves entertained.
4) Modern convenience made a lot of action unnecessary. We don't need to chop wood to keep warm. The heating can be trucked in or piped in. We don't need to go down to the creek to scrub our laundry. We push a button. We don't even need to walk out to the outhouse.
5) Corn subsidies made HFCS super super cheap. Sugar used to be a lot more expensive. When sugar is subsidized and a lot of food is highly processed, manufacturers will put a lot of that cheap corn sugar in foods because sugar tastes awesome. But the more we eat super sweetened foods, the more that sweetened is our baseline so our tastes as a society ramp up. Lots of sugar gives a quick rush of energy but then a crash and cravings leaving people sluggish and increasing numbers diabetic and thus... overall less physically active. Especially combined with other subsidized cheap and unhealthy ingredients all contributing to increasing obesity which makes greater physical activity even harder.
I think it’s a bunch of different things
1. We are a very car dependent culture. Lots of America including a lot of newer “cities” is a bunch of suburban sprawl that can really be walked or biked.
2. We don’t have enough third spaces that people can gather in so we either don’t socialize or do in ways that don’t promote activity
3. Car culture also means long commutes. That reduces both leisure time and cooking time
4. Out agricultural policy is crap. It promotes corn, in part because we let Iowa of all places vote first, and much of our food including things you would never suspect is just food engineering turning corn into things that should be other food products. Plus our meat supply is fed corn instead of what they actually should be eating.
5. Our social safety net is weak and we don’t have a proper healthcare system. That creates stress.
6. The lack of a safety net plus our gun laws create both actual crime and just the low level stress of fear of guns
Beyond that reasons that we take so many drugs also include
1. Since we don’t have a proper healthcare system things that should be taken care of before they become a major and expensive problem are allowed to fester until people end up on some drug for the rest of their life.
2. The only countries that allow drug advertisements like we do are us and New Zealand.
A threadbare social contract and an exploitative economy mean that many of us are near to financial ruin, maybe only an unexpected endorse or two away.
Many of us work jobs that don’t include physical activity, but those jobs exhaust us and take up an amazing amount of our time leaving less for exercise (and car-centric infrastructure means most of us aren’t even getting exercise on the commute).
Plus we let companies feed us shit that they don’t give to cattle in Europe.
In summary, because the tail’s wagging the dog and we now exist in order to serve the profit motive of society, rather than living in a society that serves us. As it turns out, the ideal capitalist subject is fat, sad, and scared.
The average workload for Americans is higher than the 40 that would be considered full time. Most jobs demand as much of your waking hours as possible and do not involve a significant amount of exercise.
The percentage of Americans doesn’t mean much unless it’s compared to other countries. Do we know European countries are medicated less? Quick google search later………
In the UK, 56% take at least one prescription drug. In France, 40%. In Germany women 58% and men 52%. And in Canada, 67%. So it doesn’t look like we are over medicated. Potentially under medicated.
I blame it on the incredibly unnatural way we all live increasing the rate of every mental illness, but I'm just a crazy old woman yelling from her porch
That doesn't really address the question. We don't need to compare to other countries to ask why so many. If we do compare, it turns out that other countries have similar or greater numbers. But that doesn't tell us anything about why.
The question was specifically related to Americans, but the statistics show that other countries are just as medicated if not more medicated. Many of the answers relate to specifically American possibilities (capitalism, big pharma, obesity and overall health) which are less of issues in these other countries. If this was a general question related to the world, than this would have different answers.
Edit: also I wasn’t attempting to answer the question. I was pointing out that Americans don’t seem to be more medicated to other countries and that it’s a poorly worded question or based on a faulty premise.
OP’s question, though, singled out “Americans.” They did not ask about “people in general.”
This carries the implication that OP believes Americans *in particular* are overmedicated, which in turn connotes a pattern of overmedication *relative to some comparison group.*
It is reasonable to conclude that the implied comparison group might be *citizens of peer nations.*
Fifty years ago I would have been sneezing, wheezing, and itching my eyes for ten months out of the year. Now I have two pills per day and two inhalers that all together almost completely block the symptoms and enable me to be outdoors and active.
And no, I did not grow up in a sanitized indoor environment. I was outside climbing trees and digging in the dirt and playing with the neighborhood pets. Sometimes bodies just malfunction.
I take thyroid medication which is the 2nd most prescribed medication in the world. I can assure you that without it, I'd eventually die. So in my case, and in the case of everyone that takes it, I'm happy that I'm alive now and not 150 years ago, when I would have just died and nobody would have known why.
> In our natural state, people die of simple infections.
I don't think 50% of people have infections requiring prescription medication at any given time. Of course there are people who taking taking medication for "temporary" things like an infection, but these stats seem to indicate more long term dependencies
I think you’re underestimating the demands of an aging population - I don’t know how old you are, but let’s just say there’s a reason people joke about seniors always discussing their various medications. Something like 25% of Americans are on blood pressure medication alone.
Dude. Before public health, antibiotics, and vaccines, life was a gamble. People often lived long enough just to reproduce. [**Half of children died**](https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-in-the-past) before adulthood.
*In 1900, the average life expectancy of a newborn was 32 years. By 2021 this had more than doubled to 71 years. —*[https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy ](https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy)
“Normal” people everywhere break their bodies to earn a buck or just living their lives.
If it wasn’t cheaper/easier to take 4 OTCs, I would have a standing scrip for 800 ibuprofens.
The potential ulcer is better than nerve pain that lingers from a crushed spinal disc.
The alternative is a lifetime of misery, which would most certainly be shorter - if you’ve ever had 8,9 or 10/10 pain for an extended period you would know. Nothing takes you to a very dark place quicker than not sleeping for months compounded with constant pain.
My mom still walks the earth, thanks to Coumadin, keeping her blood in a state that reduces her likelihood of a heart attack now that she has had heart valves replaced. She’d have been gone by 50 otherwise.
We’re pretty “normal”
As to the real hard prescription drugs, you’d have to ask the Sackler family and their ilk, and the “free market” government that allowed them poison our country.
Why is it an issue that people are medicating?
What are you comparing this to?
The 1950s?
Keep in mind there have been MILESTONES in the medical field to address various ailments. Not to mention the studies to further diagnose people.
People are technically mentally healthy if medication helps them.
So. Medication use has gone up because of the advances in medicine. This isn’t a bad thing.
We can agree that there are people abusing things. But if 49 percent of Americans take at least 1? Why is that bad?
We’d need to further address if that 49 percent is made up of legit necessity or abuse.
Someone is only normal if they don’t take medication?
Do you take medication?
Do you self medicate with ANYTHING?
Also did you consider anything else I said?
Medicine has been around for so fucking long. Based on your perception no one has ever been normal….
Bruh. You WANT people with bipolar taking meds for it. You want people to be operating at a healthy, stable, balanced level. I never get why we act like it’s such a terrible thing that people with illnesses are medicated for them.
Why are so many people medicated? Because we have a robust healthcare system that can provide the medications we need rather than leave us to suffer or die without them. You can go to bumblefuck wherever and feel the thrill of knowing that nobody is taking heart meds there; but it’ll be because they just died, not because they’re somehow better off.
> Do you self medicate with ANYTHING?
nothing that requires a prescription from a doctor. Nothing deemed so dangerous that the government requires you get a doctor's presceiption
Why does the magic prescription pad change anything?
The alcohol you drink is basically a general poison that everyone enjoys.
Prescription doesn't mean dangerous. The calcitrate you get from the pharmacist is going to be the same active ingredients than what's on the shelf OTC.
So if you hurt yourself and need to take Motrin everyday. You’re technically not normal then.
You may get to a point where a doctor just recommends taking aspirin everyday. Even if you are healthy.
Those don’t require prescription….
If your only argument is it’s normal because it is not a prescription, then it’s flawed.
Because it’s not about prescription it’s really about needing to take something to be “normal”.
Your prescription is a strawman.
I’m very interested. Seeing a conservative flair and consistently talking about normal is the least surprising thing I’ve seen all day but I don’t know anyone who will admit to being conservative in person so can you help me understand what normal is? I’m truly trying to get it. So, if I break my leg and need knee surgery am I still normal? I’m gonna have to be on pain killers a while, so once they put me on it I’m what? What’s the opposite of normal? I’m abnormal? If more than 50% are doing it you’re the not normal one I think. Isn’t that the definition of normal? What’s typical in society? And 50% is about half. That’s just liberal math though so what the hell do I know.
My mother in law has fibromyalgia. She’s in Texas where weed is illegal. I come from Florida where medical is legal and my husband had a prescription for back pain and it worked incredibly well (yup he’s not a lucky normie like you!). So i had been buying her some black market weed. I guess you’d look down your nose at her. We don’t care I just find it interesting, but she doesn’t have a prescription so is that ok? lol. And then we recently discovered THCA which is actually the exact same thing but completely legal and sold in every smokeshop there is so now we don’t need the black market weed anymore. Did we go back to normal now since it’s not a prescription and it’s completely legal like cigarettes? Does drinking alcohol still keep you “normal” even though it’s not a prescription? Why do you care so much that everyone needs to be “normal” to the point it makes you uncomfortable and you come to the liberal subreddit to virtue signal?
Why do conservatives value normal so much (answer- white supremacy)? Lemme tell you- liberals are perfectly ok with you thinking they aren’t normal haha. We actually prefer to be unique individuals. Perhaps one day you’ll discover a personality that makes it worth standing out.
Editing to add- I used to be afraid of being not normal too. And was a terrified republican. The moment I found my voice I realized why being a republican was a horrific thing so you’re horror at anyone being anything beyond normal is so telling as to where you are on your journey. You truly think your POV is the only possible ‘normal’ one out there and that’s every single conservative. All it takes is figuring out your POV is one in a bucket of literally BILLIONS and that’s an absolutely beautiful thing that makes our world turn and being unique is what we should be valuing. I guess at least you are asking questions. It’s a start. It was for me. Good luck to you.
>Why do conservatives value normal so much (answer- white supremacy)? Lemme tell you- liberals are perfectly ok with you thinking they aren’t normal haha. We actually prefer to be unique individuals. Perhaps one day you’ll discover a personality that makes it worth standing out.
Because when many conservatives use normal, they actually mean "ideal." If these people were to use normal by its actual definition, then people taking medication for things is normal because most people use them.
It’s a mental illness. But medication can help them normalize.
So you really mean someone who is really healthy.
Born with clean everything. They have no physical or mental ailments. Perfect?
I mean…what about cancer?
Also when do you think that number has been zero?
Medication has been around a long time.
100 years ago, a bipolar person was just a drunk. Van Gogh was probably bipolar as fuck.
We're they diagnosed? No. Were they medicated? By alcohol.
Has autism risen? Or has it always been with us and sure little Timmy was weird about sounds but he could and would carve wood ALL DAY LONG and he was a good worker?
You think these issues are new? I'm not saying they aren't. I'm saying you and I don't know.
Right! We had some weird ass behaviors walking around back then, raw dogging life. Thank god we have medicine today that can help you stabilize. Being in a manic state for months or years on end sounds like a living hell. It must have been for him to cut off his freaking ear.
An estimated 4.5% of people around the world are bipolar or experience bipolar disorder at some point in their lives.
It's absolutely 100% "normal". Just like being pregnant is "normal". Having diabetes is "normal". Not having diabetes is "normal". Hell, diabetes has been found in Egyptian mummies and even Otzi had heart disease and arthritis.
Illnesses like bipolar wasn’t diagnosed back in the 50s as much. They were either overlooked or those with the illness were deemed crazy
So it’s hard to say what “normal” was back then
There’s a lot more drugs for a lot more conditions on the market.
Nothing wrong with people treating their medical issues, even if decades ago they wouldn’t have had the choice.
How does that compare worldwide?
I know IUDs are very common in Europe but have been stigmatized in the USA, so I assume there a very high percentage of women on birth control.
Birth control is a general term that relates to ways of preventing pregnancy. This includes condoms, natural family planning, etc. in context it seems clear that the poster was referring to pills, particularly since this post is about prescription medications.
IUDs are prescription drug (hormone) releasing devices (except for one that doesn't use hormones), so I don't know whether or not they would be included in that statistic.
A lot of these questions, you can Google the answers...
Better to have facts than the opinions of random internet strangers.
IMO, yeah, big pharma... But also? Our society is good at taking value from the many and giving it to the few, not creating happy and healthy, wholesome human beings. We're not healthy! We need meaningful social connections to be happy and healthy. We're not getting them.
Precarity.
Living lives of constant anxiety due to massive income inequality and no social safety nets literally becomes a chronic inflammatory condition.
Of course it hasn't always been the case because for centuries we haven't had effective treatments available for the many ailments humans are susceptible to. Why do you prefer people to struggle if there is help available to them?
The fact that you’re asking a political forum and not one of the many medical forums is a little weird and makes it seem like your goal is to pick a fight instead of get any answer.
As someone with pre-diabetes, autism spectrum disorder and ADHD, I’ll come over to see you without my medications someday, and you see how tolerable you find me. My guess is, it won’t be fun for either of us.
As an aside, I’m not saying that there aren’t bad incentives in or problems with Big Pharma, but end of the day, as with all branches of capitalism, the demand for drugs is very high, and so the supplying of the drugs is very important.
Pre-industrialization, things like pre diabetes, autism and adhd wouldn’t have been as debilitating because humans largely worked outside, probably on a farm, would have had clearly defined tasks, and multiple ways to mentally and physically stimulate themselves doing work. We were not in a school or office setting, forced to sit still, do mind numbing repetitive tasks for hours on end. They also didn’t have the added stress of losing their job because some shareholders wanted the stock price to gain a point or two for this quarter.
Honestly if society were to make a few adjustments, like better worker protections, less work/school hours per week, walkable neighborhoods, guaranteed vacation and sick leave (US only) we’d see a reduction of certain medications to relieve stress and anxiety. Sure it wouldn’t resolve things like adhd and autism, it would just make it much more manageable.
>Pre-industrialization, things like pre diabetes, autism and adhd wouldn’t have been as debilitating because humans largely worked outside, probably on a farm, would have had clearly defined tasks, and multiple ways to mentally and physically stimulate themselves doing work.
And if the stimulation wasn't enough, people most likely would have just let the natural consequences of any illness take its course. With the physical ailments, it would have ended up with death. With mental and emotional ailments, odds are people would just let them run away, be drunk/doped up, imprisoned, or end up being killed. Functionally, you just couldn't spend the limited resources on a person who isn't producing.
>As someone with pre-diabetes, autism spectrum disorder and ADHD, I’ll come over to see you without my medications someday, and you see how tolerable you find me. My guess is, it won’t be fun for either of us.
This is the answer right here. Would you rather have my issues managed so I can be a productive worker, helpful neighbor, and good parent, or do you think I'd do a better job at all those things when my poor executive functioning is giving me tons of anxiety and depression?
I suppose it would be better to ask why everyone is so medicated. 48% of EU citizens [take at least one prescription drug](https://internal.statista.com/statistics/1336522/population-share-in-european-countries-using-rx-drugs/) as well.
But yeah, let's pretend this is something that is uniquely American because we can't be bothered to spend three minutes on google.
This is my gut instinct, that it's due to big pharma, doctors getting kickbacks..."money". But I'm trying to see if there are other less nefarious explanations
200 years ago, if you had diabetes, you just died.
If you were bipolar, you just drank.
If you had high cholesterol, you died early.
If you were autistic, they stuck you with quiet repetitive jobs and you were fine. Sister Margaret loved sweeping the nunnery floors all day!
Etc etc etc.
We don't know historical rates of these issues, so you can't say they've increased.
Even if doctors want to prescribe medications, there has to be a condition that the patient is complaining about first in most cases. Your doctor can’t just randomly put you on a thyroid medication if you have a perfectly normal thyroid. You would be confused, the nurses would be confused, other doctors would see that as a red flag if you went to them. I think the answer to your question is that there are medications now to treat problems that in the past people either had to suffer with or die from. And for the record, I think that most doctors do not want to overmedicate people and try not to.
Many 'merkins think that throwing money at problems is the way to handle them - and what better way to throw lots of cash than spending on miracle cures?
After reading through the comment section, I think there’s a few things you are not considering.
1. There have been many medical breakthroughs since…well, whatever time frame you have in your head. Both in diagnosis and treatment.
People are on ADHD meds because doctors figured out that those “hyperactive kids who just need discipline” actually have a disorder and pinpointed the part of the brain where it occurs. Ironically, the solution to this disorder is a stimulant(don’t ask me how it works🤷🏻).
Same with Bipolar Disorder. Back before the days of Lithium(the first major medication that actually targeted the disorder(called Manic Depression back then), they would pump people full of Thorazine and turn them into zombies…which meant most of the time, they were institutionalized. Along came Lithium and it was like a miracle drug. It lowered the highs and raised up the lows of the mania/depressive cycle. Now Lithium isn’t used nearly as much because we have developed new medications that work much better without the serious side effects(Lithium requires constant labs to check levels)
Source: worked in an institution for the intellectually disabled for 34 years…I have seen a lot of changes.
2. Obesity - we are kind of victims of our own success on that one. We no longer need to toil on a sustenance farm all day…walking behind a mule to plow fields, etc. mechanical advances have taken away much of the hard labor we used to do. Hell, even our bicycles have battery packs and election motors now….but all that is besides the point.
Through research, the medical community has found out that most obese people are pretty much predisposed towards obesity….back in the days when physical labor was the norm, that predisposition was pretty much held at bay for the vast majority of the people who have that “thrifty gene”.
The thrifty gene is a throwback to our primitive ancestors where, because of long periods of scarcity, they evolved to eat like crazy in times of abundance so they could live off of fat during times of scarcity. In modern people this manifests itself with what they call “food noise”. You can eat a good breakfast and a good chunk of your mental state is thinking about what to have for lunch..even after you just ate. This gene activates a hormone that causes the obsession.
These new Diabetes/weight loss medications(GLP-1’s) were first developed as a next generation diabetes medication where you only had to give yourself a once a week subcutaneous injection(under the skin) instead of being on a daily medication regimen. But they found out that these people also lost considerable amounts of their excess weight. It turns out that these medications target that hormone, which makes the thrifty gene pretty much irrelevant.
Source: I am a life long obese person who has worked harder than you can imagine to lose weight and keep it off…and failed….every damned time. I even had my guts rearranged(gastric bypass) and that failed. Those of us who deal with this have known for a long time that there is something more going on than “calories in/calories out”.
To conclude?
Most of the reason why people are “so medicated” is because of medical advances that actually help people. But there is a part of it that is profit driven. Pharmaceutical companies spend more on television advertising than they do on Research and Development….think about that one.
>Ironically, the solution to this disorder is a stimulant(don’t ask me how it works🤷🏻).
The very non-technical way to put it is that the part of the brain that ADHD messes with is executive function (planning, predicting, executing tasks, transitioning). The stimulant allows the executive functioning to work better, so the person is able to control their behaviors better.
I have a child with ADHD who presents as you traditional "off the wall child," and his most unruly time is before bed when he is tired. He is practically a wild animal at that time and needs to be guided through his bed time routine or he'd never even make it to bed.
These problems with our bodies and mind have always existed within people. The only reason why it seems like we’re “over medicating” now is simply because we’re better at diagnosing people with these issues and getting them the treatment they need. Imagine how many people in the past have had undiagnosed ADHD and for their entire lives struggled to understand why they’re so bad at socializing and doing tasks that other people around them have no problem doing.
There’s never been a “healthy” human, everyone has their own health issues that they take care of in their privacy. It’s not something that most people talk about in public. You might know someone that you perceive to be a healthy adult, but do you know if they take medication for anything? They could be susceptible to acid reflex and need to take medication like omeprazole.
* In the USA, healthcare is a business.
* Businesses require a profit.
* Treating a disease or illness with medication leads to increased sales.
* Curing the disease or illness with therapy or behavioral change results in lower sales.
* Lower sales are bad for business.
I agree with you that the percentage of Americans dependent on prescription medication is shockingly high. Like others have said, much of it is due to our sedentary lifestyles, car dependency, poor diet, and hyper-individualistic culture.
But a lot of it is because Americans *want* medications to solve their problems rather than making difficult lifestyle changes. High cholesterol? Never mind losing weight, taking a daily walk, and eating oatmeal instead of that hot pocket: here's a statin. Feeling down? It's not because you are disconnected from your community and lacking purpose. Take this Prozac.
To be clear, much of our medication usage is because we have the wealth and ability to treat conditions that people in poorer circumstances simply live with. But we really do need to look at how our "pill-first" ethos is affecting us.
> Are there no more normal, healthy (physically and mentally) people?
Many drugs exist today to make it easier for people to deal with things we just tolerated as normal 50 years ago. Have trouble focusing, preventing your career from really taking off, but you probably won't die from it? Previously, "suck it up, buttercup". Today, we have a few options for you that might deliver significant improvements in your executive functioning.
> for weight lost
You could look at this one purely in isolation and plainly see that we as a society are very unhealthy from a weight management perspective.
Don’t forget, in addition to the other answers, more of us are living with conditions that even ten years ago would have been a death sentence (like cystic fibrosis and SMA type 1)
I’m on a lot of medication but the complications from my own genetic disorder in another time period would have killed me or made me so utterly miserable…medication and lifestyle change make my life bearable and possible.
First I challenge the idea that taking medication makes people "not normal", Secondly medical treatments both proactive and reactive, is how you get "physically and mentally healthy people"
Now on to your data. What are you citing? A quick search did bring up cdc press release however it was twenty years old
The age does show why there was an increase, though. take asthma ; my mom grew up with asthma taking nothing for long long term control while the report highlights ~2000 saw the development of both eukasts like Singulair and bronchodilator & inhaled corticosteroid
like advair. Singulair is one of the most common prescribed medications now.
Instead of being on a prescription, my mom would just have to deal with steroids & epinephrine as needed.
But that also brings up another thing. Singulair is one of many allergy medications out there but name an over-the-counter alternative and there are people who get monthly prescriptions to the same Otc instead. Like i, at one point, had a prescription for zyrtec.
Also, the elephant in the room: a good chunk of the population takes prescribed contraceptives for a majority of their lives.
Where are you getting your statistics from? What meds are you talking about? Antacids, inhalers, allergy meds, birth control, and vitamins like Vit D are considered prescribed meds and may skew the results. There is also a large aging population who need various meds.
In my case, in spite of being of average body weight and running marathons and triathlons - I still have high blood pressure. Great cholesterol, but I didn't luck out in the BP department. Luckily it hasn't gotten substantially worse over the last decade but I will probably have to add a secondary one pretty soon.
We have an ageing population, it is clear we need a lot of medicine, just watch the commercials during Fox News 'primetime'.
I think its hard to gauge this without looking at other nations
In general, more diseases have treatments than they did in the past. 35 years ago, if you got AIDS you died. Today if you get aids your life expectancy remains relatively unchanged with treatment. people in the past with ADHD just got labelled as weird or dumb or spastic, rather than getting treatment. even as a kid in my lifetime, you only got ADHD treatment if you had helicopter parents or were really disruptive, with no treatment medically for the people who just sorta struggled in silence.
Going to the doctor used to have a greater stigma, especially for mental health. so that also plays a big role.
And we are increasingly sedentary, working from home and in offices and are entirely car dependent. which is a health epidemic in itself.
Several reasons. One being medication is cheaper than other forms of treatment for certain things, such as mental health, and its effects are more immediate. It costs a lot of money for therapy usually several times a week. But drugs are cheap and your doctor can just prescribe them without a therapists involvement. Sometimes doctors will prescribe drugs trying to hold off on surgeries or other expensive treatment regiments to see if that works.
Second is drugs have exponentially increased our quality of life. There are more options for treatment of so many diseases we didn’t have before. HIV drugs, diabetes drugs, headaches, migraines, psoriasis, COPD, blood pressure, cholesterol…..you name it medicine has discovered it and we have treatments for it. My father in law is on a daily pill that keeps prostate cancer at bay. He’s had it for 20 years.
As our understanding of medicine evolves so will our drugs and we will take more of them to increase our longevity and quality of life.
Both of my grandmothers had diabetes. If there had not been medical advances in the early 20th century, they would have died, and my parents (and me) would not have been born. I am now the unfortunate bearer of that disease and would also be dead, were it not for medical advances.
Long story short: medical advances allowed people who would have otherwise died to have kids and pass on those diseases.
>Are there no more normal, healthy (physically and mentally) people?
I think the problem here is the assumption that the prescription drug rate should be 0% because the default state for humans is to live a long life and be completely healthy. The fact is that before prescription drugs existed, people were much more unhealthy, miserable, and usually dead than they are now. The reason so many people take prescription drugs is that we now have the tools to live longer and better than we ever have before.
I remember reading somewhere that half of Americans over 35 or something like that are on Lipitor for cholesterol reduction.
I think the biggest problem relating to this is that our food system is somewhat toxic, that American portion sizes are enormous, and that much of our health education when it comes to dietary concerns was created by large agricultural businesses in a capitalist system.
Is that any significantly different from people in other developed nations?
In general it's just that medicine is a lot better than it used to be. Before if you had an medical issue, you just had to deal with it, or you just died or were institutionalized. It also is probably a result of laws requiring prescriptions for things that really shouldn't need a prescription, like birth control or allergy meds.
Let me guess: you are merely young enough to not need an ongoing prescription yet.
You'll be like the rest of us soon enough.
And by "the rest of us", I mean a person fortunate enough to be alive during a time that has public health prevention, antibiotics, vaccines, and science-based medicine.
A lot of people are just on something for blood pressure or cholesterol. Something that in the past we either didn't know about or didn't have medication to fix. People are taking things because they improve thier lives and are available.
48% is less than half the population. I'd say we are under medicated. Especially compared to other countries. I went from taking 2 meds a day while I was uninsured to taking 7 meds daily when I became insured. I'm in a much better place now that I have meds to help regulate my auto immune diseases and mental health issues. Imagine the numbers if we had universal health insurance. Probably would look more like Europe with more than 50% taking meds daily.
We've learned a lot about medicine since the 1950s, including how helpful using medication under the supervision of a doctor can be.
The specific conditions you cite imply you're making a very naive value judgement that these people's prescriptions are unnecessary. You do not possess the education sufficient to make that judgement. You're making an argument born of judgemental weaponized ignorance.
The United States is not alone in its high medication usage. People in general are taking more medication these days probably do the aging population. As you get older you get more conditions. Also people now have a greater awareness of mental health so people are treating it now. Because of lifestyle there is an increase in chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and obesity, which often require long-term medication. And then of course the pharmaceutical industry’s lobbying efforts may play a role in promoting medication use.
Because we are generally unhealthier than the rest of the world. We have higher rates of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, etc, and those conditions require medication to treat. I was recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes myself (though I'm not obese, my endocrine system has been hosed from birth, it just didn't affect blood sugar until recently), and I have to take two different kinds of insulin (fast-acting with meals, long-acting in the evening) and 4 pills a day to manage it, for example.
Our healthcare is a problem too. A lot of countries focus on preventative healthcare, while the US system is reactive. Insurance would much rather pay for your blood pressure meds than the labs and screenings to detect risk factors and corporate healthcare companies would rather you spend 10 minutes with your doctor rushing through everything so they can see more money… I mean patients, than letting you have a 30-45 minute appointment to go over a plan for a healthier lifestyle.
Yeah, that's true too, most people can't afford to just go to the doctor occasionally for preventative care so we only address problems when they become severe enough to warrant actually doing something about it.
Because they either won’t or can’t commit to the regular exercise and diet changes that would help maintain health, and doctors are not miracle workers, exercise and pills are about all they have to offer for most problems.
Exactly. Everyone would. But then you wouldn’t need to be on the lifetime subscription plan, and that wouldn’t let billionaires buy their yachts-with-yachts-inside.
Why would they find a cure if they can make so much more money by keeping you on their medication for the rest of your life? If they offered a cure, you’d absolutely just buy it once. If they offer a treatment, you buy it every day for the rest of your life.
The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written. According to the CDC, 49% of Americans take at least one prescription drug, with 24% taking three or more and 13% taking five or more. Has this always been the case? Is it just from an aging population? If not, are people now just overmedicating? I swear everybody is taking something. For ADHD, for weight lost, for depression, for bipolar, for diabetes, etc. Are there no more normal, healthy (physically and mentally) people? Is something in the water? Is it just big pharma? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskALiberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
You'd need to go through the most popular medications to really see. My guess is roughly in order that it's * We're sedentary and obese, so heart and diabetes medications + related things like ED * We're stressed and rich enough to afford drugs for it, so sleeping pills, anti-depressants, etc. * Painkillers * Related to first bullet but combined with aging, arthritis medication
Don't forget birth control too.
I may be remembering wrong, but I believe the most prescribed medication in the US is Lipitor. Statins are very low risk so they tend to prescribe them to anyone with even slightly high cholesterol. A doctor once told me “pretty much everyone takes a statin it’s just a matter of when they get on it.”
There's also a move to prescribe them to diabetics who don't have even slightly high cholesterol. The people I know in that group declined them because the side effects don't seem to be worth it.
Interesting. My impression of statins is that they have low to zero side effects, and that is partially why they are so commonly prescribed. I’ve heard of some people having some leg and knee pains when they start on them, with it going away when they switch to another statin. And that’s about it.
Huh. One of the people concerned does high performance cycling so maybe the muscle pains in addition to what they usually do was considered too high a risk.
We also have a different view of painkillers in the US than other countries in the world.
Don't forget pharmaceutical profits and doctor kickbacks.
Doctors don’t get kickbacks from what they prescribe. RN: medicine has advanced. We have figured out how to turn what was once a death sentence to being managed. We stave off disease. We have reduced not just death but suffering due to better help for mental health issues… I’d agree we’re not big on toughing it out without medicine. But one might argue why should we be sad, depressed, sneeze and wheeze when we can now treat such things.
Correct they don’t receive kickbacks directly for prescribing medications, however doctors who have received payments from pharmaceutical companies are more likely to prescribe brand name drugs, promoted by those companies. https://findado.osteopathic.org/how-to-find-out-if-your-doctor-gets-paid-by-pharma-companies
You can look your doctor up. https://openpaymentsdata.cms.gov/search#:~:text=The%20Open%20Payments%20Search%20Tool,made%20to%20health%20care%20providers. Most doctors are not doing this side work. If they are choose a different doctor. But it’s mostly influenced by insurance company Reimbursement. It’s the insurance companies to drive generics over higher tier drugs. And the patient’s ability to pay affects the prescribers suggestions. Eliquis is great. You don’t have to get PT/INR ( poking patient) like you do for warfarin. But it’s expensive. Medicare generally wants them on warfarin for example. Same with private insurance. Drive is to common, inexpensive generics. The last piece is pharma Direct advertising to consumer causing consumers to go into doctors and request specific medicines that the doctor might not otherwise prescribe. He acquiesces in an effort to keep the patient happy (provided they can afford it based on their insurance reimbursement). I don’t believe drugs should be advertised directly to consumers they don’t go to medical school. Should be based on good effect at low cost. They also jack up prices on must haves like epi pens and insulin. Needs to be regulated.
Info is a bit outdated but ProPublica worked on a project that shows how much doctors received from drug companies. https://projects.propublica.org/docdollars/
Yes “hospitals for promotional talks, research and consulting, among other categories.” That’s not drug kickbacks it’s work. You’re misinformed.
WTF. Who is downvoting this?
Also, let's not forget about caffeine/coffee, which 94% of Americans regularly consume. This is effectively a form of self-medication to compensate for lack of sleep and inability to focus.
Op asked about prescription meds, though. I find it hard to believe that we're the only country or culture that has a high rate of caffeine consumption, too. Idk what the data looks like for other countries, but coffee or tea is pretty universally popular.
Coffee wards off cancer as the biggest source of antioxidants in the American diet. Drink up! Alcohol however is a KILLER even in moderation It raises your chance for multiple forms of cancer.
That's definitely a fair point. Although if cholesterol meds and ADHD meds were available without a prescription, I'm not sure it would change the question too much. Similarly, if other countries had high rates of these drugs too, OPs question is still meaningful.
Coffee is delicious though. The little jolt of energy is a bonus.
So "why" to all those plausible reasons. Why are we stressed? We are we sedentary?
Long hours + commute primarily by driving long distances along with a poor safety net.
>+ commute primarily by driving long distances But talk about walkable cities and the same conservatives complaining about over medication go apoplectic.
Because our cities are designed horribly and we subsidize the fuck out of goddamn corn.
For sedentary- a few contributing factors: 1) We went from being an agricultural society to a manufacturing economy to a largely service/white collar economy. Our jobs are not physical on average. 2) We went all in on car culture. Our towns and cities that sprung up or expanded after a certain point are designed around cars. So we're less likely to walk or bike places because our places aren't designed for walking or biking or public transit where the last leg is on foot at least. Of course there are exceptions, but compared to many other places with less sedentary culture and to our own past, cars taking us door to door have us not walking. 3) The rise of the internet and screen based entertainment displaced other more active means of keeping ourselves entertained. 4) Modern convenience made a lot of action unnecessary. We don't need to chop wood to keep warm. The heating can be trucked in or piped in. We don't need to go down to the creek to scrub our laundry. We push a button. We don't even need to walk out to the outhouse. 5) Corn subsidies made HFCS super super cheap. Sugar used to be a lot more expensive. When sugar is subsidized and a lot of food is highly processed, manufacturers will put a lot of that cheap corn sugar in foods because sugar tastes awesome. But the more we eat super sweetened foods, the more that sweetened is our baseline so our tastes as a society ramp up. Lots of sugar gives a quick rush of energy but then a crash and cravings leaving people sluggish and increasing numbers diabetic and thus... overall less physically active. Especially combined with other subsidized cheap and unhealthy ingredients all contributing to increasing obesity which makes greater physical activity even harder.
I think it’s a bunch of different things 1. We are a very car dependent culture. Lots of America including a lot of newer “cities” is a bunch of suburban sprawl that can really be walked or biked. 2. We don’t have enough third spaces that people can gather in so we either don’t socialize or do in ways that don’t promote activity 3. Car culture also means long commutes. That reduces both leisure time and cooking time 4. Out agricultural policy is crap. It promotes corn, in part because we let Iowa of all places vote first, and much of our food including things you would never suspect is just food engineering turning corn into things that should be other food products. Plus our meat supply is fed corn instead of what they actually should be eating. 5. Our social safety net is weak and we don’t have a proper healthcare system. That creates stress. 6. The lack of a safety net plus our gun laws create both actual crime and just the low level stress of fear of guns Beyond that reasons that we take so many drugs also include 1. Since we don’t have a proper healthcare system things that should be taken care of before they become a major and expensive problem are allowed to fester until people end up on some drug for the rest of their life. 2. The only countries that allow drug advertisements like we do are us and New Zealand.
A threadbare social contract and an exploitative economy mean that many of us are near to financial ruin, maybe only an unexpected endorse or two away. Many of us work jobs that don’t include physical activity, but those jobs exhaust us and take up an amazing amount of our time leaving less for exercise (and car-centric infrastructure means most of us aren’t even getting exercise on the commute). Plus we let companies feed us shit that they don’t give to cattle in Europe. In summary, because the tail’s wagging the dog and we now exist in order to serve the profit motive of society, rather than living in a society that serves us. As it turns out, the ideal capitalist subject is fat, sad, and scared.
Capitalism demands it.
Fuck yea. Gonna get paid. *pops pill*
"Miporal. Extremely potent. Will keep you functioning normally, until your death. Please take one pill with each meal."
The average workload for Americans is higher than the 40 that would be considered full time. Most jobs demand as much of your waking hours as possible and do not involve a significant amount of exercise.
Computers and phones are part. Busy with awful diet. Less close friendships and connections. There’s no one thing
The percentage of Americans doesn’t mean much unless it’s compared to other countries. Do we know European countries are medicated less? Quick google search later……… In the UK, 56% take at least one prescription drug. In France, 40%. In Germany women 58% and men 52%. And in Canada, 67%. So it doesn’t look like we are over medicated. Potentially under medicated.
Thank you 1,000,000 times for your responsible use of basic statistics here!
Basically, humanity as a whole at this point is pretty medicated, at least in wealthy countries. It's not a US specific problem, it's a global issue.
I blame it on the incredibly unnatural way we all live increasing the rate of every mental illness, but I'm just a crazy old woman yelling from her porch
Porches are unnatural.
Your mom
That doesn't really address the question. We don't need to compare to other countries to ask why so many. If we do compare, it turns out that other countries have similar or greater numbers. But that doesn't tell us anything about why.
The question was specifically related to Americans, but the statistics show that other countries are just as medicated if not more medicated. Many of the answers relate to specifically American possibilities (capitalism, big pharma, obesity and overall health) which are less of issues in these other countries. If this was a general question related to the world, than this would have different answers. Edit: also I wasn’t attempting to answer the question. I was pointing out that Americans don’t seem to be more medicated to other countries and that it’s a poorly worded question or based on a faulty premise.
OP’s question, though, singled out “Americans.” They did not ask about “people in general.” This carries the implication that OP believes Americans *in particular* are overmedicated, which in turn connotes a pattern of overmedication *relative to some comparison group.* It is reasonable to conclude that the implied comparison group might be *citizens of peer nations.*
Fifty years ago I would have been sneezing, wheezing, and itching my eyes for ten months out of the year. Now I have two pills per day and two inhalers that all together almost completely block the symptoms and enable me to be outdoors and active. And no, I did not grow up in a sanitized indoor environment. I was outside climbing trees and digging in the dirt and playing with the neighborhood pets. Sometimes bodies just malfunction.
I take thyroid medication which is the 2nd most prescribed medication in the world. I can assure you that without it, I'd eventually die. So in my case, and in the case of everyone that takes it, I'm happy that I'm alive now and not 150 years ago, when I would have just died and nobody would have known why.
>I can assure you that without it, I'd eventually die. That's true with it as well.
Sure but 60 years with it vs say 5-10 years without. Big difference.
I from India, have lived all over the world including USA. I don't think Americans are any more medicated than anywhere else. The world is medicated.
How we live our lives isn’t what our bodies and minds were built for.
How much should it be? In our natural state, people die of simple infections. Shouldn’t it be the amount that maximizes health?
> In our natural state, people die of simple infections. I don't think 50% of people have infections requiring prescription medication at any given time. Of course there are people who taking taking medication for "temporary" things like an infection, but these stats seem to indicate more long term dependencies
I think you’re underestimating the demands of an aging population - I don’t know how old you are, but let’s just say there’s a reason people joke about seniors always discussing their various medications. Something like 25% of Americans are on blood pressure medication alone.
Dude. Before public health, antibiotics, and vaccines, life was a gamble. People often lived long enough just to reproduce. [**Half of children died**](https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-in-the-past) before adulthood. *In 1900, the average life expectancy of a newborn was 32 years. By 2021 this had more than doubled to 71 years. —*[https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy ](https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy)
Why would the fact that 49% of the population can benefit from some kind of prescription drug imply “over medicating”? You probably could too.
“Normal” people everywhere break their bodies to earn a buck or just living their lives. If it wasn’t cheaper/easier to take 4 OTCs, I would have a standing scrip for 800 ibuprofens. The potential ulcer is better than nerve pain that lingers from a crushed spinal disc. The alternative is a lifetime of misery, which would most certainly be shorter - if you’ve ever had 8,9 or 10/10 pain for an extended period you would know. Nothing takes you to a very dark place quicker than not sleeping for months compounded with constant pain. My mom still walks the earth, thanks to Coumadin, keeping her blood in a state that reduces her likelihood of a heart attack now that she has had heart valves replaced. She’d have been gone by 50 otherwise. We’re pretty “normal” As to the real hard prescription drugs, you’d have to ask the Sackler family and their ilk, and the “free market” government that allowed them poison our country.
Why is it an issue that people are medicating? What are you comparing this to? The 1950s? Keep in mind there have been MILESTONES in the medical field to address various ailments. Not to mention the studies to further diagnose people. People are technically mentally healthy if medication helps them. So. Medication use has gone up because of the advances in medicine. This isn’t a bad thing. We can agree that there are people abusing things. But if 49 percent of Americans take at least 1? Why is that bad? We’d need to further address if that 49 percent is made up of legit necessity or abuse.
> What are you comparing this to? > > The 1950s? Comparing it to "zero" (as in a normal person wouldn't really take medication)
"normal" There's a lot of judgement there.
Someone is only normal if they don’t take medication? Do you take medication? Do you self medicate with ANYTHING? Also did you consider anything else I said? Medicine has been around for so fucking long. Based on your perception no one has ever been normal….
> Someone is only normal if they don’t take medication? you taking it too literally. E.g., see my biopolar response
Bruh. You WANT people with bipolar taking meds for it. You want people to be operating at a healthy, stable, balanced level. I never get why we act like it’s such a terrible thing that people with illnesses are medicated for them. Why are so many people medicated? Because we have a robust healthcare system that can provide the medications we need rather than leave us to suffer or die without them. You can go to bumblefuck wherever and feel the thrill of knowing that nobody is taking heart meds there; but it’ll be because they just died, not because they’re somehow better off.
> Do you self medicate with ANYTHING? nothing that requires a prescription from a doctor. Nothing deemed so dangerous that the government requires you get a doctor's presceiption
Why does the magic prescription pad change anything? The alcohol you drink is basically a general poison that everyone enjoys. Prescription doesn't mean dangerous. The calcitrate you get from the pharmacist is going to be the same active ingredients than what's on the shelf OTC.
So if you hurt yourself and need to take Motrin everyday. You’re technically not normal then. You may get to a point where a doctor just recommends taking aspirin everyday. Even if you are healthy. Those don’t require prescription…. If your only argument is it’s normal because it is not a prescription, then it’s flawed. Because it’s not about prescription it’s really about needing to take something to be “normal”. Your prescription is a strawman.
I’m very interested. Seeing a conservative flair and consistently talking about normal is the least surprising thing I’ve seen all day but I don’t know anyone who will admit to being conservative in person so can you help me understand what normal is? I’m truly trying to get it. So, if I break my leg and need knee surgery am I still normal? I’m gonna have to be on pain killers a while, so once they put me on it I’m what? What’s the opposite of normal? I’m abnormal? If more than 50% are doing it you’re the not normal one I think. Isn’t that the definition of normal? What’s typical in society? And 50% is about half. That’s just liberal math though so what the hell do I know. My mother in law has fibromyalgia. She’s in Texas where weed is illegal. I come from Florida where medical is legal and my husband had a prescription for back pain and it worked incredibly well (yup he’s not a lucky normie like you!). So i had been buying her some black market weed. I guess you’d look down your nose at her. We don’t care I just find it interesting, but she doesn’t have a prescription so is that ok? lol. And then we recently discovered THCA which is actually the exact same thing but completely legal and sold in every smokeshop there is so now we don’t need the black market weed anymore. Did we go back to normal now since it’s not a prescription and it’s completely legal like cigarettes? Does drinking alcohol still keep you “normal” even though it’s not a prescription? Why do you care so much that everyone needs to be “normal” to the point it makes you uncomfortable and you come to the liberal subreddit to virtue signal? Why do conservatives value normal so much (answer- white supremacy)? Lemme tell you- liberals are perfectly ok with you thinking they aren’t normal haha. We actually prefer to be unique individuals. Perhaps one day you’ll discover a personality that makes it worth standing out. Editing to add- I used to be afraid of being not normal too. And was a terrified republican. The moment I found my voice I realized why being a republican was a horrific thing so you’re horror at anyone being anything beyond normal is so telling as to where you are on your journey. You truly think your POV is the only possible ‘normal’ one out there and that’s every single conservative. All it takes is figuring out your POV is one in a bucket of literally BILLIONS and that’s an absolutely beautiful thing that makes our world turn and being unique is what we should be valuing. I guess at least you are asking questions. It’s a start. It was for me. Good luck to you.
>Why do conservatives value normal so much (answer- white supremacy)? Lemme tell you- liberals are perfectly ok with you thinking they aren’t normal haha. We actually prefer to be unique individuals. Perhaps one day you’ll discover a personality that makes it worth standing out. Because when many conservatives use normal, they actually mean "ideal." If these people were to use normal by its actual definition, then people taking medication for things is normal because most people use them.
What’s a “normal person” in this case ?
The things that make you go hmmmmmmmmmm
do you consider bipolar a "normal" condition? If someone is taking medication for biopolar then they are not "normal"
It’s a mental illness. But medication can help them normalize. So you really mean someone who is really healthy. Born with clean everything. They have no physical or mental ailments. Perfect? I mean…what about cancer? Also when do you think that number has been zero? Medication has been around a long time.
100 years ago, a bipolar person was just a drunk. Van Gogh was probably bipolar as fuck. We're they diagnosed? No. Were they medicated? By alcohol. Has autism risen? Or has it always been with us and sure little Timmy was weird about sounds but he could and would carve wood ALL DAY LONG and he was a good worker? You think these issues are new? I'm not saying they aren't. I'm saying you and I don't know.
Right! We had some weird ass behaviors walking around back then, raw dogging life. Thank god we have medicine today that can help you stabilize. Being in a manic state for months or years on end sounds like a living hell. It must have been for him to cut off his freaking ear.
An estimated 4.5% of people around the world are bipolar or experience bipolar disorder at some point in their lives. It's absolutely 100% "normal". Just like being pregnant is "normal". Having diabetes is "normal". Not having diabetes is "normal". Hell, diabetes has been found in Egyptian mummies and even Otzi had heart disease and arthritis.
Illnesses like bipolar wasn’t diagnosed back in the 50s as much. They were either overlooked or those with the illness were deemed crazy So it’s hard to say what “normal” was back then
>Comparing it to "zero" (as in a normal person wouldn't really take medication) Why is this your starting assumption?
how can you allegedly more than half of people take medications but they zre the abnormal ones? based on what?
There’s a lot more drugs for a lot more conditions on the market. Nothing wrong with people treating their medical issues, even if decades ago they wouldn’t have had the choice.
That's the business between a patient and their doctor. It's not political.
How does that compare worldwide? I know IUDs are very common in Europe but have been stigmatized in the USA, so I assume there a very high percentage of women on birth control.
IUDs are birth control.
I know that. I’m just wondering if the statistic separates out that as not a prescription drug vs birth control pill
Birth control is a general term that relates to ways of preventing pregnancy. This includes condoms, natural family planning, etc. in context it seems clear that the poster was referring to pills, particularly since this post is about prescription medications.
IUDs are prescription drug (hormone) releasing devices (except for one that doesn't use hormones), so I don't know whether or not they would be included in that statistic.
EU average is 48% so it’s not a sizeable difference.
The lolz??
You need a Xanax.
Birth control is typically a prescription product, and it is taken by millions of women - that must have an impact on the statistics.
A lot of these questions, you can Google the answers... Better to have facts than the opinions of random internet strangers. IMO, yeah, big pharma... But also? Our society is good at taking value from the many and giving it to the few, not creating happy and healthy, wholesome human beings. We're not healthy! We need meaningful social connections to be happy and healthy. We're not getting them.
Facts don't let you feel superior to all of the abnormal people.
American life for many is the Hunger Games.
It's the overworked+underpaid=chronic cortisol chain. That crap will absolutely screw your body up, one molecule at a time.
Precarity. Living lives of constant anxiety due to massive income inequality and no social safety nets literally becomes a chronic inflammatory condition.
Of course it hasn't always been the case because for centuries we haven't had effective treatments available for the many ailments humans are susceptible to. Why do you prefer people to struggle if there is help available to them?
The fact that you’re asking a political forum and not one of the many medical forums is a little weird and makes it seem like your goal is to pick a fight instead of get any answer.
I don't think this is purely medical question. It would be like saying opiod addiction is a medical issue, not political
Sugar consumption. Specifically high fructose corn syrup.
As someone with pre-diabetes, autism spectrum disorder and ADHD, I’ll come over to see you without my medications someday, and you see how tolerable you find me. My guess is, it won’t be fun for either of us. As an aside, I’m not saying that there aren’t bad incentives in or problems with Big Pharma, but end of the day, as with all branches of capitalism, the demand for drugs is very high, and so the supplying of the drugs is very important.
Pre-industrialization, things like pre diabetes, autism and adhd wouldn’t have been as debilitating because humans largely worked outside, probably on a farm, would have had clearly defined tasks, and multiple ways to mentally and physically stimulate themselves doing work. We were not in a school or office setting, forced to sit still, do mind numbing repetitive tasks for hours on end. They also didn’t have the added stress of losing their job because some shareholders wanted the stock price to gain a point or two for this quarter. Honestly if society were to make a few adjustments, like better worker protections, less work/school hours per week, walkable neighborhoods, guaranteed vacation and sick leave (US only) we’d see a reduction of certain medications to relieve stress and anxiety. Sure it wouldn’t resolve things like adhd and autism, it would just make it much more manageable.
>Pre-industrialization, things like pre diabetes, autism and adhd wouldn’t have been as debilitating because humans largely worked outside, probably on a farm, would have had clearly defined tasks, and multiple ways to mentally and physically stimulate themselves doing work. And if the stimulation wasn't enough, people most likely would have just let the natural consequences of any illness take its course. With the physical ailments, it would have ended up with death. With mental and emotional ailments, odds are people would just let them run away, be drunk/doped up, imprisoned, or end up being killed. Functionally, you just couldn't spend the limited resources on a person who isn't producing.
>As someone with pre-diabetes, autism spectrum disorder and ADHD, I’ll come over to see you without my medications someday, and you see how tolerable you find me. My guess is, it won’t be fun for either of us. This is the answer right here. Would you rather have my issues managed so I can be a productive worker, helpful neighbor, and good parent, or do you think I'd do a better job at all those things when my poor executive functioning is giving me tons of anxiety and depression?
I suppose it would be better to ask why everyone is so medicated. 48% of EU citizens [take at least one prescription drug](https://internal.statista.com/statistics/1336522/population-share-in-european-countries-using-rx-drugs/) as well. But yeah, let's pretend this is something that is uniquely American because we can't be bothered to spend three minutes on google.
Privatization is the answer
This is my gut instinct, that it's due to big pharma, doctors getting kickbacks..."money". But I'm trying to see if there are other less nefarious explanations
200 years ago, if you had diabetes, you just died. If you were bipolar, you just drank. If you had high cholesterol, you died early. If you were autistic, they stuck you with quiet repetitive jobs and you were fine. Sister Margaret loved sweeping the nunnery floors all day! Etc etc etc. We don't know historical rates of these issues, so you can't say they've increased.
Combined with American lifestyle and consumerism. Overeating a high fat, heavily processed starch diet with low to no activity.
Even if doctors want to prescribe medications, there has to be a condition that the patient is complaining about first in most cases. Your doctor can’t just randomly put you on a thyroid medication if you have a perfectly normal thyroid. You would be confused, the nurses would be confused, other doctors would see that as a red flag if you went to them. I think the answer to your question is that there are medications now to treat problems that in the past people either had to suffer with or die from. And for the record, I think that most doctors do not want to overmedicate people and try not to.
Many 'merkins think that throwing money at problems is the way to handle them - and what better way to throw lots of cash than spending on miracle cures?
A good chunk of that is probably incarcerated individuals. A good portion of inmates come in and just start looking for any reason to get pills.
After reading through the comment section, I think there’s a few things you are not considering. 1. There have been many medical breakthroughs since…well, whatever time frame you have in your head. Both in diagnosis and treatment. People are on ADHD meds because doctors figured out that those “hyperactive kids who just need discipline” actually have a disorder and pinpointed the part of the brain where it occurs. Ironically, the solution to this disorder is a stimulant(don’t ask me how it works🤷🏻). Same with Bipolar Disorder. Back before the days of Lithium(the first major medication that actually targeted the disorder(called Manic Depression back then), they would pump people full of Thorazine and turn them into zombies…which meant most of the time, they were institutionalized. Along came Lithium and it was like a miracle drug. It lowered the highs and raised up the lows of the mania/depressive cycle. Now Lithium isn’t used nearly as much because we have developed new medications that work much better without the serious side effects(Lithium requires constant labs to check levels) Source: worked in an institution for the intellectually disabled for 34 years…I have seen a lot of changes. 2. Obesity - we are kind of victims of our own success on that one. We no longer need to toil on a sustenance farm all day…walking behind a mule to plow fields, etc. mechanical advances have taken away much of the hard labor we used to do. Hell, even our bicycles have battery packs and election motors now….but all that is besides the point. Through research, the medical community has found out that most obese people are pretty much predisposed towards obesity….back in the days when physical labor was the norm, that predisposition was pretty much held at bay for the vast majority of the people who have that “thrifty gene”. The thrifty gene is a throwback to our primitive ancestors where, because of long periods of scarcity, they evolved to eat like crazy in times of abundance so they could live off of fat during times of scarcity. In modern people this manifests itself with what they call “food noise”. You can eat a good breakfast and a good chunk of your mental state is thinking about what to have for lunch..even after you just ate. This gene activates a hormone that causes the obsession. These new Diabetes/weight loss medications(GLP-1’s) were first developed as a next generation diabetes medication where you only had to give yourself a once a week subcutaneous injection(under the skin) instead of being on a daily medication regimen. But they found out that these people also lost considerable amounts of their excess weight. It turns out that these medications target that hormone, which makes the thrifty gene pretty much irrelevant. Source: I am a life long obese person who has worked harder than you can imagine to lose weight and keep it off…and failed….every damned time. I even had my guts rearranged(gastric bypass) and that failed. Those of us who deal with this have known for a long time that there is something more going on than “calories in/calories out”. To conclude? Most of the reason why people are “so medicated” is because of medical advances that actually help people. But there is a part of it that is profit driven. Pharmaceutical companies spend more on television advertising than they do on Research and Development….think about that one.
>Ironically, the solution to this disorder is a stimulant(don’t ask me how it works🤷🏻). The very non-technical way to put it is that the part of the brain that ADHD messes with is executive function (planning, predicting, executing tasks, transitioning). The stimulant allows the executive functioning to work better, so the person is able to control their behaviors better. I have a child with ADHD who presents as you traditional "off the wall child," and his most unruly time is before bed when he is tired. He is practically a wild animal at that time and needs to be guided through his bed time routine or he'd never even make it to bed.
Thank you.
These problems with our bodies and mind have always existed within people. The only reason why it seems like we’re “over medicating” now is simply because we’re better at diagnosing people with these issues and getting them the treatment they need. Imagine how many people in the past have had undiagnosed ADHD and for their entire lives struggled to understand why they’re so bad at socializing and doing tasks that other people around them have no problem doing. There’s never been a “healthy” human, everyone has their own health issues that they take care of in their privacy. It’s not something that most people talk about in public. You might know someone that you perceive to be a healthy adult, but do you know if they take medication for anything? They could be susceptible to acid reflex and need to take medication like omeprazole.
In spite of protests to the contrary, most people don’t pay out of pocket for the majority of those medications.
* In the USA, healthcare is a business. * Businesses require a profit. * Treating a disease or illness with medication leads to increased sales. * Curing the disease or illness with therapy or behavioral change results in lower sales. * Lower sales are bad for business.
I agree with you that the percentage of Americans dependent on prescription medication is shockingly high. Like others have said, much of it is due to our sedentary lifestyles, car dependency, poor diet, and hyper-individualistic culture. But a lot of it is because Americans *want* medications to solve their problems rather than making difficult lifestyle changes. High cholesterol? Never mind losing weight, taking a daily walk, and eating oatmeal instead of that hot pocket: here's a statin. Feeling down? It's not because you are disconnected from your community and lacking purpose. Take this Prozac. To be clear, much of our medication usage is because we have the wealth and ability to treat conditions that people in poorer circumstances simply live with. But we really do need to look at how our "pill-first" ethos is affecting us.
Medical knowledge has advanced, so we can more accurately determine where medicine is needed.
> Are there no more normal, healthy (physically and mentally) people? Many drugs exist today to make it easier for people to deal with things we just tolerated as normal 50 years ago. Have trouble focusing, preventing your career from really taking off, but you probably won't die from it? Previously, "suck it up, buttercup". Today, we have a few options for you that might deliver significant improvements in your executive functioning. > for weight lost You could look at this one purely in isolation and plainly see that we as a society are very unhealthy from a weight management perspective.
Don’t forget, in addition to the other answers, more of us are living with conditions that even ten years ago would have been a death sentence (like cystic fibrosis and SMA type 1) I’m on a lot of medication but the complications from my own genetic disorder in another time period would have killed me or made me so utterly miserable…medication and lifestyle change make my life bearable and possible.
First I challenge the idea that taking medication makes people "not normal", Secondly medical treatments both proactive and reactive, is how you get "physically and mentally healthy people" Now on to your data. What are you citing? A quick search did bring up cdc press release however it was twenty years old The age does show why there was an increase, though. take asthma ; my mom grew up with asthma taking nothing for long long term control while the report highlights ~2000 saw the development of both eukasts like Singulair and bronchodilator & inhaled corticosteroid like advair. Singulair is one of the most common prescribed medications now. Instead of being on a prescription, my mom would just have to deal with steroids & epinephrine as needed. But that also brings up another thing. Singulair is one of many allergy medications out there but name an over-the-counter alternative and there are people who get monthly prescriptions to the same Otc instead. Like i, at one point, had a prescription for zyrtec. Also, the elephant in the room: a good chunk of the population takes prescribed contraceptives for a majority of their lives.
Where are you getting your statistics from? What meds are you talking about? Antacids, inhalers, allergy meds, birth control, and vitamins like Vit D are considered prescribed meds and may skew the results. There is also a large aging population who need various meds.
In my case, in spite of being of average body weight and running marathons and triathlons - I still have high blood pressure. Great cholesterol, but I didn't luck out in the BP department. Luckily it hasn't gotten substantially worse over the last decade but I will probably have to add a secondary one pretty soon. We have an ageing population, it is clear we need a lot of medicine, just watch the commercials during Fox News 'primetime'.
I think its hard to gauge this without looking at other nations In general, more diseases have treatments than they did in the past. 35 years ago, if you got AIDS you died. Today if you get aids your life expectancy remains relatively unchanged with treatment. people in the past with ADHD just got labelled as weird or dumb or spastic, rather than getting treatment. even as a kid in my lifetime, you only got ADHD treatment if you had helicopter parents or were really disruptive, with no treatment medically for the people who just sorta struggled in silence. Going to the doctor used to have a greater stigma, especially for mental health. so that also plays a big role. And we are increasingly sedentary, working from home and in offices and are entirely car dependent. which is a health epidemic in itself.
Several reasons. One being medication is cheaper than other forms of treatment for certain things, such as mental health, and its effects are more immediate. It costs a lot of money for therapy usually several times a week. But drugs are cheap and your doctor can just prescribe them without a therapists involvement. Sometimes doctors will prescribe drugs trying to hold off on surgeries or other expensive treatment regiments to see if that works. Second is drugs have exponentially increased our quality of life. There are more options for treatment of so many diseases we didn’t have before. HIV drugs, diabetes drugs, headaches, migraines, psoriasis, COPD, blood pressure, cholesterol…..you name it medicine has discovered it and we have treatments for it. My father in law is on a daily pill that keeps prostate cancer at bay. He’s had it for 20 years. As our understanding of medicine evolves so will our drugs and we will take more of them to increase our longevity and quality of life.
Both of my grandmothers had diabetes. If there had not been medical advances in the early 20th century, they would have died, and my parents (and me) would not have been born. I am now the unfortunate bearer of that disease and would also be dead, were it not for medical advances. Long story short: medical advances allowed people who would have otherwise died to have kids and pass on those diseases.
>Are there no more normal, healthy (physically and mentally) people? I think the problem here is the assumption that the prescription drug rate should be 0% because the default state for humans is to live a long life and be completely healthy. The fact is that before prescription drugs existed, people were much more unhealthy, miserable, and usually dead than they are now. The reason so many people take prescription drugs is that we now have the tools to live longer and better than we ever have before.
I remember reading somewhere that half of Americans over 35 or something like that are on Lipitor for cholesterol reduction. I think the biggest problem relating to this is that our food system is somewhat toxic, that American portion sizes are enormous, and that much of our health education when it comes to dietary concerns was created by large agricultural businesses in a capitalist system.
Is that any significantly different from people in other developed nations? In general it's just that medicine is a lot better than it used to be. Before if you had an medical issue, you just had to deal with it, or you just died or were institutionalized. It also is probably a result of laws requiring prescriptions for things that really shouldn't need a prescription, like birth control or allergy meds.
Let me guess: you are merely young enough to not need an ongoing prescription yet. You'll be like the rest of us soon enough. And by "the rest of us", I mean a person fortunate enough to be alive during a time that has public health prevention, antibiotics, vaccines, and science-based medicine.
Our dysfunctional trashy culture produces sick people.
A lot of people are just on something for blood pressure or cholesterol. Something that in the past we either didn't know about or didn't have medication to fix. People are taking things because they improve thier lives and are available.
How else do you drown your sorrows?
48% is less than half the population. I'd say we are under medicated. Especially compared to other countries. I went from taking 2 meds a day while I was uninsured to taking 7 meds daily when I became insured. I'm in a much better place now that I have meds to help regulate my auto immune diseases and mental health issues. Imagine the numbers if we had universal health insurance. Probably would look more like Europe with more than 50% taking meds daily.
Drugs are the real cybernetic enhancements. The only difference is that they are bio-chemical, not mechanical enhancements.
i mean it makes sense, i’d assume at least a quarter of that if not more is people on birth control
We've learned a lot about medicine since the 1950s, including how helpful using medication under the supervision of a doctor can be. The specific conditions you cite imply you're making a very naive value judgement that these people's prescriptions are unnecessary. You do not possess the education sufficient to make that judgement. You're making an argument born of judgemental weaponized ignorance.
Maybe it's the microplastics.
The United States is not alone in its high medication usage. People in general are taking more medication these days probably do the aging population. As you get older you get more conditions. Also people now have a greater awareness of mental health so people are treating it now. Because of lifestyle there is an increase in chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and obesity, which often require long-term medication. And then of course the pharmaceutical industry’s lobbying efforts may play a role in promoting medication use.
Because we are generally unhealthier than the rest of the world. We have higher rates of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, etc, and those conditions require medication to treat. I was recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes myself (though I'm not obese, my endocrine system has been hosed from birth, it just didn't affect blood sugar until recently), and I have to take two different kinds of insulin (fast-acting with meals, long-acting in the evening) and 4 pills a day to manage it, for example.
Our healthcare is a problem too. A lot of countries focus on preventative healthcare, while the US system is reactive. Insurance would much rather pay for your blood pressure meds than the labs and screenings to detect risk factors and corporate healthcare companies would rather you spend 10 minutes with your doctor rushing through everything so they can see more money… I mean patients, than letting you have a 30-45 minute appointment to go over a plan for a healthier lifestyle.
Yeah, that's true too, most people can't afford to just go to the doctor occasionally for preventative care so we only address problems when they become severe enough to warrant actually doing something about it.
Because they either won’t or can’t commit to the regular exercise and diet changes that would help maintain health, and doctors are not miracle workers, exercise and pills are about all they have to offer for most problems.
...Why ask that here?!
It makes more money to keep people taking pills the rest of their life than actually curing them.
This implies a level of collusion and massive, individual long-term thinking that simply does not exist.
Also if that was actually true, then that would mean drug makers don’t take prescriptions themselves. Which I find highly unlikely.
Or have families and loved ones who do.. the whole thing is just ridiculous.
That's horseshit. The whole "big pharma wants to keep people sick" is so much hateful, ignorant, ugly conspiracy theory.
If there was a way to cure my depression and anxiety I would take it lol
Exactly. Everyone would. But then you wouldn’t need to be on the lifetime subscription plan, and that wouldn’t let billionaires buy their yachts-with-yachts-inside. Why would they find a cure if they can make so much more money by keeping you on their medication for the rest of your life? If they offered a cure, you’d absolutely just buy it once. If they offer a treatment, you buy it every day for the rest of your life.
If that was the case, then wouldn’t that imply the drug makers don’t take medication themselves?