Fully 59% of U.S. adults were on at least one prescription drug in the years 2011 and 2012, and 15% took five or more. A dozen years earlier, 51% of adults filled at least one prescription and 8% filled at least five, federal survey data show.
The researchers who crunched these numbers said there was no single explanation for the striking rise in prescription drug use. The graying of America and the advent of Medicare Part D contributed to the increase, but the nation’s obesity crisis was probably a bigger factor, they wrote Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.
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