More Pills Not Necessarily Better
View PDF | Print View
by: M-Washman
Total views: 94
Word Count: 336
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the nearly 20,000 deaths from unintentional drug poisonings in 2004 were second only to automobile accidents as a cause of accidental deaths in this country. And the number of deaths from accidental drug interactions rose by 68 percent between 1999 and 2004. Several factors may explain these findings: More people, especially the elderly, are taking multiple drugs With increasing age, toxicity can occur at lower drug doses People are making greater use of powerful prescription pain killers Many potent drugs that previously required a prescription can now be purchased over the counter (OTC) More people are using herbs and other dietary supplements SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) are widely used for the treatment of psychiatric disorders (more about interactions with SSRIs in a future blog) The risks of dangerous drug interactions rise even further when a person adds OTC medications or dietary supplements. The supplements can be especially dangerous because they are not regulated by the FDA, they contain seemingly innocuous herbs that may have potent effects, they may be contaminated with lead and other heavy metals, and they sometimes are laced with prescription drugs to achieve their claimed benefits. A recent example of this is the dietary supplement Livero3, which has been promoted for sexual enhancement. The FDA has required a recall of the supplement because it was found to contain the prescription drug tadalafil (Cialis), a drug similar to Generic Viagra used to treat erectile dysfunction. Interactions of tadalafil with prescription drugs containing nitrates can result in dangerously low blood-pressure levels. The more medications a person is taking, the greater the chance of an adverse interaction among those drugs. Always inform your doctors about all medications (prescription and OTC) or supplements you are taking. In a future entry, I will discuss an alarming yet little known condition caused by the interaction of some widely prescribed antidepressants with a large number of other medications or dietary supplements.
About the Author
Cialis Online Research has been steadily progressing over the years.
Rating: Not yet rated