Seniors: Hooked on Drugs
by author Michelle Hancock

About 75 -per -cent of seniors 65 and older living in private households take prescription or non-prescription drugs on a daily basis. For institutionalized seniors, this jumps to a whopping 96 -percent.

A rainbow of pills-red ones, yellow ones, green ones, blue ones-are threatening Canada’s elderly population as they are being coaxed and coerced into an unnatural and, often, lethal reliance on prescribed medication. It’s ironic that we take drugs to feel better and often end up feeling worse or getting sicker. What’s really tragic, though, is that complementary medicine often offers safer alternatives to drug therapy, and yet few people know about or have access to these options. about it, or have access to it.

Pill Toll

Each year, we spend more than $14.7 billion on prescription and non-prescription drugs, representing 9.3 per cent of total health expenditures. Almost half (42 per cent) of Canadians, 12 and older, report taking some form of drug regularly, according to the newest Statistical Report on the Health of Canadians (1999).

As we age, the likelihood of stocking our medicine cabinets to the brim increases. A Portrait of Seniors in Canada by Statistics Canada (1999) reports, in 1995, about 75 per cent of those 65 and older living in private households take took prescription or nonprescription drugs on a daily basis. For institutionalized seniors, this jumps jumped to a whopping 96 per cent. Moreover, researchers estimate that older people underreport the number of drugs they use daily by 20 to 30 per cent, which means the problem is probably more serious than the statistics show.

In general, the five most common drugs are painkillers (64 per cent of the population takes them), followed by medications for cough/cold (18 per cent), blood pressure (nine per cent), then antibiotics (eight per cent), and stomach remedies (eight per cent) (Health Reports, 1998). Drug use in seniors is mainly by prescription. “The average senior receives 25 prescriptions annually¾a 100-per-cent jump in just four years,” says Croft Woodruff, a researcher and health food retailer in Vancouver, BC. “As overmedication of seniors grows, there are greater health threats. Antibiotics, anti-depressants, steroidal and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, cardiovascular drugs including blood pressure medications, cholesterol-lowering drugs, anti-diabetic drugs, and tranquillizers all strip valuable vitamins, minerals, and friendly bacteria from the body. When any of these drugs are combined, the risk of developing nutrient deficiencies increases exponentially.”

Combining Drugs

Drug combining has become a way of life for people aged 65 and up, more than any other age group. In 1994-95, 10 per cent of Canadians aged 65 to 74, and 13 per cent of those 75 and older, reported taking multiple (five or more) medications daily. Wayne J. Millar of the Health Statistics Division of Statistics Canada notes that this increases the possibility of drug-related problems such as inappropriate prescribing, adverse drug reactions, and non-compliance with prescription medications. He writes in Multiple Medication Use Among Seniors (Health Reports, 1998) that “An estimated 10 to 30 per cent of elderly hospital patients are admitted because of medication toxicity.”

Heart Medications

One of the largest categories of commonly prescribed drugs includes those to combat high blood pressure and heart disease. Yet these pills kill 79,000 Canadians annually. Calcium channel blockers, beta-blockers, and ACE inhibitors¾the list goes on, and so does the tally of possible negative effects. Statin drugs, for example, are prescribed to lower cholesterol; some common ones are atorvastatin (Lipitor), simvastatin (Zocor) and lovastatin (Mevacor). Dr. Julian Whitaker notes in Reversing Heart Disease (Warner Books, 2002) that their side-effects include: liver toxicity, gastrointestinal symptoms, rashes, blurred vision, muscle inflammation, and and weakness, in addition to the previously mentioned nutrient deficiencies. Particularly, theyThese drugs deplete the body of coenzyme Q₁₀, which is involved in energy production and required by the heart. A vicious and overlooked cycle is thus created. “I consider the CoQ₁₀ deficiencies caused by the growing use of statin drugs to be in large part responsible for the current epidemic of heart failure,” writes Dr. Whitaker.

A graduate of the UBC School of Journalism and former alive managing editor, Michelle Hancock remains dedicated to writing about complementary health. To de-stress, she plays sports and surrounds herself with books. E-mail michellehancock@shaw.ca.

Source: alive #253, November 2003