Author: James Anderson
25 Most Popular Medications by U S. Spending in 2023
These drugs treat common illnesses and health conditions and reflect the health needs of U.S. patients. Patterns of prescription drug use may reflect underlying patterns of health conditions and health care access in the population. Polypharmacy, often defined as the simultaneous use of five or more prescription drugs, is more common in an aging population where multiple coexisting chronic conditions often occur; however, safety concerns may arise (1). The United States and Canada share many cultural and historical ties, but with different models for health care delivery (2).
Other statistics on the topicTop pharmaceutical drugs
Additionally, people should not take simvastatin with gemfibrozil (Lopid) because of the risk of a severe muscle disorder called rhabdomyolysis. Keep reading to learn more about the 10 most common medications healthcare professionals prescribe in the United States. There were over 1.2 billion prescriptions written for antihypertensive drugs in 2022, making it the therapeutic category with the most dispensed prescriptions in the United States. Approximately 74 billion U.S. dollars were spent on In the U.S., antidiabetics are among the therapy areas where the most money is spent. Keytruda– a branded drug used to treat cancer – is the top medicine based on 2023 sales in the United States, generating over 15 billion U.S. dollars.
Leading 20 U.S. pharma products by total prescriptions in 2022
- It’s also used to prevent kidney problems in patients with diabetes.
- NHANES and CHMS are cross-sectional surveys designed to provide nationally representative estimates of the noninstitutionalized populations of the United States and Canada, respectively.
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- With diabetes, the body’s insulin does not function well, but metformin can help improve its function.
- According to our database, some of the most common outpatient prescription drugs were related to chronic conditions, like heart disease and diabetes, and infections.
The use of one or more and five or more medications among adults aged 40–79 is similar between the United States and Canada, despite substantial differences in their health care systems. However, patterns of the most commonly used drug types are different in the two countries. We used Definitive Healthcare data to examine outpatient prescription drug trends, including the most prescribed drugs based on the percentage of claims in 2022 YTD.
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Levothyroxine is a man-made hormone that is used to treat hypothyroidism. Hypothyroidism is a condition where your thyroid doesn’t produce enough thyroid hormone naturally. Your thyroid hormone helps your body stay warm, use energy, and keeps important organs such as your brain and heart working effectively. Collaboration is essential for success in preventing opioid overdose deaths. Together, we can better coordinate efforts to prevent opioid overdoses and deaths.
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When you have diabetes, your body can’t produce enough insulin to keep your blood sugar at a normal level. High blood sugar can cause health problems such as vision loss, heart disease, and kidney disease. Over 102 million prescriptions are written for Levothyroxine every year, making it the second most prescribed medicine.
A proton pump inhibitor lowers the amount of acid that the cells in the stomach lining produce. Statin therapies, such as atorvastatin (Lipitor), are the first-line treatment option for high cholesterol. By blocking the ACE, lisinopril blocks the enzyme angiotensin I from converting to angiotensin II.
It’s used to help lower cholesterol and fat levels in your blood. Atorvastatin, together with a healthy diet and exercise, may help prevent chest pain, heart attacks, or strokes that are caused by having too much fat in your blood. Sometimes it’s prescribed to prevent heart problems in people who have risk factors such as type 2 diabetes.
These results spanned Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, one anastomosis gastric bypass, and sleeve gastrectomy. One likely contributor to higher utilization, Tichy says, is expanded indications. This is when an already approved medication gets approved for another use.
Analgesics (for pain relief) was the second most common drug type among Canadian adults aged 60–79, whereas analgesics did not rank in the top five most commonly used drug types among U.S. adults aged 60–79. Amlodipine belongs to a group of medicines called calcium channel blockers and is used to treat high blood pressure. Calcium causes your heart to contract strongly and calcium channel blockers prevent calcium from entering your heart and arteries. Amlodipine is also used to treat angina and other issues caused by heart disease. The 10 most common medications doctors prescribe in the U.S. include atorvastatin, amlodipine, and metformin. These highly prescribed drugs reflect the health problems that doctors commonly diagnose in the country.