Inactive ingredients in prescription medicine: What they do to you
Healthcare is a matter of concern for this age;it is a problem that disturbs governments all over the world. In spite of the efforts made by consecutive administrations, a lot of toxic medication are still manufactured all over the world and labelled safe for consumption. Science Alert recently issued a warning about the possible damage that could be caused by inactive ingredients found in prescription medication.
A new study, cited in Science Daily, led by a team of investigators from Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts Institute of Technology has found that the vast majority of the most frequently prescribed medications in the U.S. contain at least one ingredient capable of causing an adverse reaction.
"While we call these ingredients 'inactive,' in many cases, they are not,”While the doses may be low, we don't know what the threshold is for individuals to react in the majority of instances," said the lead scientist. "This pushes us to think about precision care and about the role of regulation and legislation when it comes to labelling medications that contain an ingredient that may cause an adverse reaction."
According to Discover Magazine, inactive ingredients are added for several reasons: they help deliver drugs to the body, they can also be used as dyes and flavourings, and they can extend the shelf life of drugs and many other things. Inactive ingredients are components often added to improve the taste, absorption and other characteristics of a pill and when pharmaceutical companies create their own versions of a popular drug, it’s often the inactive ingredients that differ.
A paper published recently in Science Translational Medicine these different active ingredients can be harmful in different ways to different people. For instance, there are people with allergies or other sensitivitiesthat may ingest the drugs without knowing what inactive ingredients are present in them.According to the paper, “If you’re lactose intolerant, or have irritable bowel syndrome, for example, you might unknowingly ingest compounds that could cause discomfort. That might lead patients to discontinue treatment with a drug, which could cause more serious problems down the road.”
Researchers found that more than 90 percent of all oral medications tested contained at least one ingredient that can cause allergic or gastrointestinal symptoms in sensitive individuals.
The excessive use ofprescription drugs can cause a lot of harm, so doctors must educate their patients on this, however, often the doctors, patients and companies conflict.
In the past, doctorsprescribed medication with the least side effects for the patients, now they consider the sales of pharmaceutical companies while disregarding the side effects of these destructive drugs.It is the responsibility of health institutions and pharmaceutical companies to constantly raise awareness of these damages.
If you are asking if some of the substances involved in the manufacture of the drug are harmful or not, it certainly has significant damage to public health so everyone should take caution when taking the drug to avoid side effects.
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