New study finds a third of adults taking medicines that could impact mental health
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A recent study by the University of Illinois at Chicago found that more than one third of adults in the U.S may unknowingly take prescription medicines that could cause depression and an increased risk of suicide.
“As we’ve looked at the epidemic currently of suicide, we need to really again start looking at patients’ medicines but the combination of medicines is also important because we often don’t think about that,” said Dr. Daniel Rusyniak who is the Medical Director of the Indiana Poison Center at IU Health.
He said often times as people age, they get to be on more medications, including some that may not be necessary.
“As people get older particularly, they tend to accumulate medicines, in many ways like you accumulate stuff in your basement. Sometime you have a symptom, somebody prescribes something and very often as clinicians we don’t look at patients and figure out is this still helping, is this still benefiting you and if not, can we take it away?”
Rusyniak gave an example of someone who had issues with gastric reflux. That medicine would be useful at the time of the issue and may be taken long term even when it is not needed.
“There’s really good evidence to show that when you start getting more than five medications, and there’s a lot of patients especially as they get older who are on more than five medications, that side effects from those medicines are creating new symptoms,” he said.
He spoke of a fairly new topic called de-prescribing or stopping medication that may no longer be beneficial to the patient. One particular type of drugs that IU Health is focused on is anticholinergic type drugs that impact neurotransmitters in the brain.
“We as clinicians really need to be in tune to asking patients, is this medicine helping you and if not let’s look at reducing it or let’s look at getting rid of it altogether. There is pretty good evidence to show there’s a greater risk of dying or medical conditions as the number of medications you are on goes up.”
For people who think there are some medicines that are no longer beneficial, they should see their doctor to talk about the possibility of eliminating those medications.