Do you experience depression, tiredness, muscle weakness, or high blood pressure? Has it gotten worse since you have been on a prescription medicine? Any or all of these symptoms while taking prescription medications could be due to drug-induced nutrient depletions. Common prescription medications can affect your body’s ability to absorb nutrients.
Some common types of prescription medications have been shown to deplete your body of essential nutrients, including: oral contraceptives, antibiotics, anticonvulsants, anti-diabetic drugs, blood pressure medications, steroids, painkillers, heart medications, cholesterol lowering drugs, antidepressants, and heartburn or ulcer prevention medications.
Prednisone, an anti-inflammatory drug commonly prescribed for allergies, arthritis, ulcerative colitis and breathing conditions, has been shown over time to deplete the body of calcium, vitamin D, potassium, zinc, vitamin C, vitamin B6, folic acid and selenium. These nutritional deficiencies can lead to problems, including: osteoporosis, heart and blood pressure irregularities, tooth decay, muscle weakness, hearing loss, fatigue, edema, slow wound healing, loss of sense of smell and taste, lower immunity, depression, sleep disturbances, increased cardiovascular disease risk, birth defects, anaemia and reduced antioxidant protection.
So although you are taking care of your allergic dermatitis with prednisone, your high cholesterol with cholesterol lowering statins, or omeprazole for your acid reflux, you may not know that by taking these medications you are likely depleting your body of essential nutrients. This can result in symptoms of tiredness, lower immunity, depression and muscle weakness, just to name a few. Some serious complications, such as accelerated free radical damage and aging, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, and osteoporosis are also potential depletion problems.
Nutritional deficiency related symptoms are often reported back to the primary doctor, who may not make the connection that you have a nutritional deficiency that is likely caused by the prescribed drug. This can result in another new prescription for the reported symptoms, leading to a cycle of polypharmacy (more than one prescription drug) at extra expense with increased risks of drug interactions and side effects. The next drug may also have its own drug-related nutrition depletions, leading to another visit to the GP, and the cycle continues…
Figure 1. Drug/nutrient polypharmacy cycle. The cycle begins with a general practitioner prescribing a medication to a patient; followed by the patient’s response to the medication-induced symptoms; and consequent actions of patient returning to the general practitioner resulting in another prescription for initial drug-related side effects. (Dr. Kathleen Wills, 2012)
According to the latest statistics from the Kaiser Health Foundation, the average American adult, aged 19 to 64, now takes more than 11 prescription drugs. So while polypharmacy used to be primarily a concern for seniors—who, on average fill more than 31 prescriptions per year—polypharmacy now applies to virtually everyone, including children and toddlers, whose drug use now averages out to four or more drugs per child[1]. While American statistics may seem alarming, there is growing evidence that New Zealand is catching up with this trend.
Do you experience depression, tiredness, muscle weakness, or high blood pressure? Has it gotten worse since you have been on a prescription medicine? Any or all of these symptoms while taking prescription medications could be due to drug-induced nutrient depletions. Common prescription medications can affect your body’s ability to absorb nutrients.
