This article is from my Friend Dr. Laura Ruby’s blog and should be considered part of an important wake-up call:
Kids “popping pills”
The fastest growing market for medications in the past few years ischildren. Children are being viewed as the new growth market in the pharmaceutical industry. Don’t get me wrong, pharmaceutical medications, if used in the proper setting can be lifesaving, but OUR CHILDREN? There is something intuitively wrong about our kids popping pills along with their gummy vitamins and juice in the morning. Children are supposed to be healthy, vibrant and full of energy. There is something gravely wrong with this picture.
Medication use in kids
The nation’s largest pharmacy benefit manager, MEDCO, did an analysis of prescription drug use in children. The amount of money spent on prescriptions drugs for children with chronic conditions increased by nearly 11% in one year alone. This was three times the increase in medication usage seen in senior citizens. So what exactly does that mean? Are we saying that the rate of chronic illness in our kids is rising faster than in their grandparents? Either way it doesn’t sound very promising. Over the past year, 1 in 4 children covered by a health plan took a prescription drug to treat some form of chronic illness.
Kids taking “adult medicines”
More disturbing is the types of medications that are being prescribed are typically medications prescribed for adult onset chronic disease such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension, gastrointestinal reflux and elevated cholesterol. Once again, an ominous reflection of the impact that our American lifestyle is having on our children’s health. While asthma medications are still the most commonly prescribed drugs for kids, the use of blood pressure medications has risen by a startling 17 percent. For the rest of this article go to http://drlauraruby.com/essential-nutrition/the-drugging-of-american-children/
