More Children Being Medicated For Chronic Conditions
Posted on: Monday, 3 November 2008, 13:55 CST
More and more children in the U.S. are taking a larger number of medications for chronic illnesses, including diabetes, which doctors say may point to a troubling trend toward an obesity epidemic.
Prescriptions for drugs to treat type-2 diabetes doubled from 2002 to 2005. Type-2 diabetes it commonly linked to obesity. That suggests that at least 23,000 privately insured children in the USA are now taking diabetes medications, according to authors of the new study in today's Pediatrics.
Additionally, asthma medications rose by more than 46 percent, medicines for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder increased by more than 40 percent and prescriptions for cholesterol-lowering drugs were up by 15 percent.
The recent study was conducted by Emily Cox, senior director of research with Express Scripts, Dr. Donna Halloran of the Pediatric Research Institute in St. Louis, and Douglas Mager of the Kansas Health Institute in Topeka.
"We've got a lot of sick children," said Cox.
"What we've been seeing in adults, we're also now seeing in kids."
Cox based her study on prescription records of nearly 4 million children a year, ages 5 to 19, covered by Express Scripts. She says her findings may not apply to the 40 percent of children who are uninsured or covered by government health plans.
Most of the increase in drugs for diabetes, attention deficit/hyperactivity and depression was seen in girls. The gender gap was most striking in diabetes: While the number of boys taking medication grew by 39 percent, the number of girls using them climbed by 147 percent, Cox found.
Chronic conditions among children could be increasing dramatically, the study's authors wrote.
Unless these children make major changes -- such as eating healthier and exercising more -- they could be facing a lifetime of illness, Cox says.
However, authors also said the trend could also reflect other factors such as changes in the way doctors prescribe drugs and better screening that identifies more chronic conditions.
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Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports
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