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American Morning

When it Comes to Over-the-Counter Drugs, Americans May be Taking Too Much of Good Thing

Aired January 16, 2002 - 08:52   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Just this week, we heard that an over-the-counter medication, Aspirin, could help prevent heart attacks and save lives. But when it comes to over-the-counter drugs in general, it looks like Americans may be taking too much of a good thing. A new survey shows that a remarkable 81 percent of U.S. adults use at least one medication on any given week.

And joining me now to discuss the new survey, CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

COOPER: Thank you, Dr. Gupta, for being with us.

GUPTA: Thank you.

COOPER: What about the study?

GUPTA: It is sort of interesting. I think people have thought for a long time that we may be taking too many medications. Pharmaceutical company are probably thrilled by that prospect. But some scientists and researchers actually tried to look at the numbers and see just how many medications we were taking.

As you mentioned, 81 percent of the people surveyed actually had taken at least one medication in the past week. Even more concerning, 25 percent of the people had taken five medications, and 5 percent of people had taken 10 or more medications just in the past week. So a lot of different medications being thrown around out there. Whether or not this is more due to overprescribing habits by doctors, or more due to lifestyle decisions by potential patients is -- was a little unclear, but certainly issues raised by this paper.

But clearly, Andersen, there is a lot of medications being taken and prescribed out there.

COOPER: All right. Dr. Gupta, we've got a lot of e-mails this morning for you, so let's start away -- Dee Cerito (ph) in Mystic Connecticut asks, "I feel that all too often medication (penicillin drugs) are dispensed when they are not needed. This will eventually, as it has been proven, weaken the immune systems of society as a whole and make all of us less resistant to infection."

Do you agree with that?

GUPTA: That's right. Antibiotics are a major concern, no question. So many times, people are taking antibiotics, which are antibacterial medications when, in fact, they have a viral self- limited infection that will go away on its own. There's a problem with that. Not only is it not helpful, it could be harmful. It will take more antibiotics to kill some of the normal bacteria in your body. The same thing that happens in your body can happen to communities at large. At one time, Penicillin was the antibiotic of choice for most infections. Now it hardly treats anything because of all that resistance that developed over time. So a very good point there.

All right, Sasha in Honolulu, Hawaii writes, "I'm curious as to what is the most widely prescribed medication today, and what was the most widely prescribed drug 10 years ago?"

GUPTA: Interestingly. I was sort of interested in that same question. We actually looked at that, and the most widely prescribed medication today is actually estrogen supplements, hormone replacement, and you actually got a list of the top 10 there. You'll see the top three are estrogen thyroid replacement, and then the pill, which is number three.

Sort of interestingly, the bottom three, the next three after those top, are two blood pressure medications and an cholesterol lowering medication. It goes back to what we were talking about earlier. Those next three are more reflecting of some of the lifestyle decisions that we have made, meaning if we find these blood pressure medications and lowering cholesterol lowering medications are so good, sometimes we're not as anxious to try some of the sort of old-age adages, such as exercise and good diet.

COOPER: All right, next e-mail from San Jose. "I'm advised to take B-12 vitamin tablets, as I am deficient. I take multivitamin Centrum. I would appreciate if you can let me know the side effects. Thanks and regards."

GUPTA: Luckily, that's probably one of the safest medications out there, and that actually is, as you know, not something you need a prescription for, but multivitamins are the most commonly taken product today in America. So you're relatively safe with a once-a-day Centrum.

COOPER: All right, Dora Smith (ph) writes CNN, "I currently take Tylenol or ibuprofen or a decongestant daily (one, sometimes two of the products) is this harmful to my life?" Actually, that's from somebody else, not Dora.

GUPTA: This is a good question, actually, and it raises an important point. Tylenol is a medication obviously which everyone hears about, one of the most common over-the-counter medications people take. Oftentimes, depending on the doses, you could take two extra strength Tylenols, two 500 milligram tablets, which would be a gram of Tylenol. Now if you're taking that every three to four hours, you could start to get into some concerns about liver toxicity. Ten grams of Tylenol a day certainly is a very, very valid concern. So it really depends on how much you're taking, and how often you're taking it. Tylenol is not a medication that people should stay on long-term. Again, that 10 gram number is an important number to keep in the back of the mind. Don't get anywhere near that, if you can avoid it.

COOPER: All right, Dr. Gupta, paging Dr. Gupta, thank you very much for joining us this morning and responding to people's e-mail. Thanks.

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