Are there too many medicines and not enough health?
According to research out today, half of the adult population in England are taking prescription drugs.
The report, by the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC), showed that 50% women and 43% of men took at least one prescribed medicine in the last week
On average 2.7 million prescriptions are dispensed each day in England
The drugs most commonly taken are statins, antidepressants, pain relief and asthma inhalers.
Whilst the 21st century has brought innovation and drugs which help prolong peoples lives, are we increasingly relying on pills rather than a healthier lifestyle
Is there over medication in society?
What regular medication do you take? What are your views?
We'd love to hear your comments
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Your body,your responsibility. Abuse it & you lose it.
I have had various illnesses over the years but none has stopped me from leading a normal working life.Lots of pain so I researched & went to a chiropractor & later Poditrist,Massage specialist & healer.
This has cost me lots of money ( not wealthy) but enabled me to live my life working full time in a demanding job until I was made redundant at 64.
My problems are a result of Polio ,Accidents etc so in that respect I am lucky ,ie nothing congenital ,but it still is down to me .
Every day is painful but you get on with it
He now takes 18 tablets a day, without which he would not now be here. So I have to comment in the negative as we had one, the health, but now the other, the medication. Things are not always cut and dried!
So I would sympathise with those who must take medication in order to manage a medical condition.
I think when you achieve the status of a silver surfer then you should know your own body and be wise enough to realise that a pill can't solve all your problems.
In fact I might not even be here , so I am all in favour of essential medications, which help me to,keep healthy
I'm sure there are a lot of others like me but I do think that we should all take more responsibility to look after ourselves and lead a healthy lifestyle - 'eat less, exercise more' has to be the way forward to reduce our reliance on prescribed medication.
It is only assumption but I'd expect a correlation in the percentage of the populus dependant on medication and the two aforementioned factors. You hear horror stories about some drugs but I know people, who are anything but loafers, who's quality of life have been greatly improved by medication.
Regarding the huge numbers of poor people who suffer from depression and related conditions - I certainly do think we need to focus on what the root causes are. This is an area where I think research into the effects of lifestyle and socioeconomics could be more rewarding in the fight against these debilitating conditions than research into new antidepressant medication.