Image: dreamglow. Flickr/CC

Globe columnist Scott Kirsner asks if a pill reminder gadget for geezers will prompt them to take their meds, in this nice piece (excerpt, and link, below.

Gods help me, I only take one prescription pill  a day at 42, and I frequently forget to take that one. If I am depending on even pills at 82, I am in big trouble.

Pharmaceutical companies say they are losing billions of dollars annually to noncompliance: that’s when patients take less, or none, of what their doctors order.

But the problem for patients isn’t only  that they are forgetting their meds–they also hate the side effects of the drugs, and being reminded that they are getting old.

For example, former president Bill Clinton nearly bought the farm after discontinuing the pill regimen that was controlling his cholesterol. (He said he felt healthy enough, and reckoned the meds were unnecessary.)

There are other good reasons for noncompliance. The editor of a peer-reviewed journal focusing on metabolic disorders–who exercises his ass off, two hours per day, by the way–told me that high blood pressure meds cause diabetes, and diabetes drugs cause high blood pressure.

SSRI’s, said to be the safest antidepressants on the market, may also contribute to diabetes, several studies suggest. SSRI’s have also been found to cause bone loss, GI disorders, and bleeding disorders–because they keep serotonin in the central nervous system–at the expense of the rest of the body.

Your goal, the metabolic syndrome expert told me, should be to stay healthy, so that you will not need these drugs in middle age.

Here’s that excerpt, and a link, to Scott’s piece in the Globe, today:

A study released this month by the New England Healthcare Institute, a Cambridge think tank, found that anywhere from a third to a half of all Americans don’t take their meds, or don’t take them at the right time or at the right dosage. The institute estimated that the result – which can include extra doctors visits and even hospitalization – costs $290 billion annually.

via New gadgets prod people to remember their meds – The Boston Globe.