A significant portion of people in the U.S. rely on prescription medications. More than 131 million Americans take, on average, four prescriptions daily. Among adults ages 40 to 79, nearly a quarter use five or more medications a day.
The term for taking multiple prescriptions is “polypharmacy,” and it can lead to all sorts of problems including drug interactions and amplified side effects.
In addition, systematic reviews have found that polypharmacy is associated with higher risks of developing depression and dementia, and also the risk of death. (Study authors are careful to point out that it’s difficult to tease out whether it’s the multiple medications that increase the risk, or the underlying conditions.)
Medical researchers are working on a potential solution: Combining pills that contain multiple prescriptions into one tablet, known as a “polypill.” A groundbreaking study published this summer in the New England Journal of Medicine tested a new pill that combines three cardiovascular medicines.
Researchers prescribed the polypill to more than 1,000 patients within six months of a heart attack. They prescribed the same medications, but in three separate pills, to a control group. They followed each group for three years.
Participants who received the polypill were more likely to keep taking their medications, less likely to experience another cardiovascular event and less likely to die of a heart attack. (The overall mortality rate among both groups was similar.)
An earlier systematic review yielded similar results: Using a polypill significantly improved the likelihood that people would continue to take their medicines and reduced the risk of future heart attacks and deaths.
Interestingly, polypills are already used to treat other conditions, including HIV and the common cold (Think Nyquil!). They were first suggested to treat cardiovascular disease more than 20 years ago, when two doctors proposed giving a polypill to prevent heart disease to all adults 55 years of age and older. While that initial concept met strong resistance, the current use of polypills for people who already have heart disease is gaining traction.
The bottom line: The evidence shows that a combination pill for cardiovascular disease is an important step forward in helping to reduce the number of medications that someone takes, ultimately making it easier for patients to stick with their drug regimens and improving outcomes overall.
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