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According to the Mayo Clinic and Olmsted Medical Center, 70 percent of Americans take at least one prescription drug, and more than half of these people take two. The most commonly prescribed are antidepressants, antibiotics and painkillers.
Over the last 10 years, prescription drug use in the United States has steadily increased. According to researchers, this trend is not expected to slow down anytime soon as drug companies continue to hammer out new and “exciting” treatments for any number of conditions. The increase in use raises concerns over many things including prescription practices, drug expenditures and the impact that taking so many drugs has on long-term physical and mental health.
One area of great concern involves the number of side-effects that so many drugs have. If you’re taking prescription medications, then you may want to listen up. The Archives of Internal Medicine recently published a report stating that the average prescription drug contains 70 side-effects, with some posing as many as 525 possible reactions. Yet manufacturers are attempting to keep users’ worries at bay by claiming these medications are safe and the reactions only need to be listed in an effort to avoid possible lawsuits.
If these medications, which can contain an upwards of hundreds of potential reactions, are so safe, how is it that each year 700,000 people visit the emergency room due to medication side-effects?
Source: http://www.offthegridnews.com/2013/12/27/average-prescription-drug-has-70-side-effects/