Nature Medicine | Spoonful of Medicine
Taking multiple medications at the same time can lead to unexpected — and potentially life-threatening — drug interactions, doctors say
By Stu Hutson The number of people concurrently taking multiple prescription drugs is on the rise. According to numbers released last fall by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in ten Americans is now on five or more medications—nearly twice as many people as in 2000—and the number of people taking at least two drugs has risen from a quarter to a third of the population over the same time period. Similar statistics are also reported throughout Europe. And as drug combinations grow more common, so does the risk that these medicines may interact in unpredictable ways
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