Updated recommendations for the use of medications and supplements can easily escape the eyes of most consumers, as can changes to familiar remedies. These changes can affect the health of users — especially seniors — so it’s important to be up to date. Two Atlanta-area health care providers detail some updates and how older medication users can stay on top of the latest recommendations.
Medication modifications
Although there aren’t loads of new drugs on the market, modifications to familiar medications can be an issue for those who don’t know about the changes, according to Dr. Melissa Black, a direct primary care doctor with her own practice, Empower Family Medicine in Decatur.
Over-the-counter buyers should look carefully at new brands that are revisions of older drugs but still in the same classes, according to Black. This instance can crop up in medications that treat conditions like cough, cold, pain, constipation and reflux.
“In these categories, we often see drugs by new names that are really old drugs repurposed or modified slightly and marketed as new,” she said.
Usage updates
Other times, authorities in the medical field update usage specifications. Deanna Joe, an internal medicine physician at Piedmont Physicians of Midtown, listed some specific examples seniors need to be vigilant about.
- Aspirin: Recommendations for aspirin as a preventive health management strategy stopped in 2022. Patients without a history of cardiovascular disease might have been taking aspirin as a preventive, Joe said. But it’s now come to light that negative side effects like internal bleeding and easy bruising are a factor, and there’s no mortality benefit from the medication.
“I am still seeing patients who are coming in, and they’re still on their aspirin, and they say, ‘Oh, my doctor told me to take it 10 years ago, and then no one else told me to stop it,’” Joe said.
- Fish oil: The medical community once recommended many patients take fish oil to prevent cardiovascular issues. Recently, however, the British Medical Journal said regular use of fish oil could result in increased risk of atrial fibrillation and stroke, Joe said.
- Antihistamines: First-generation antihistamines, which Joe said a lot of people use for colds, sleep aids and allergies, bring along side effects because they cross the blood-brain barrier. In older people, this can lead to a higher risk of cognitive issues over time, according to current American Geriatrics Society Beers Criteria.
- Anti-inflammatory medications can also pose an elevated risk in the form of bleeding and lowered kidney function.
“A lot of older people are on these over-the-counter medications because they’re having a lot of joint pain and arthritis,” Joe said. “We generally tell people to go towards acetaminophen or Tylenol, which is a much safer alternative instead of that class of medications.”
Finding information
It’s important to have current information, but what’s the best way to find it?
Simply looking at a list like the Beers Criteria may not be beneficial for most patients — just because a medication is listed, Joe said, doesn’t mean doctors don’t put patients on it with good reason.
Talking to a health provider, is the best bet. Joe recommended patients make a list of all medications they have questions about, list the brand and generic names, and bring the list to their doctor.
“The doctor should be able to very quickly kind of go through it and say, ‘All right — don’t take this. Take this instead of that.’”
Black agreed. Although she recommends doctors as a first resource, she said pharmacists are a great adjunct.
“Your primary care physician or your pharmacist has lots of information for you,” she said. “Pharmacists are so underappreciated and so underutilized … They are a wealth of knowledge. I really encourage my patients to look for pharmacies that have pharmacists you can talk to more accessibly — your local pharmacies — privately owned pharmacies. You’ll often find they’re doing smaller volumes of business, and therefore, the pharmacists have more time to talk to the people coming in.”
Direct-to-consumer advertising can mean a strong pull toward new over-the-counter medications, but buyers can educate themselves by simply knowing what ingredients are in a medication they’re looking at and determining if those ingredients are problematic.
“Really, what you want to look for are what are the ingredients, and if they have any of those ingredients, you would want to avoid those because of the potential side effects,” Black said. “The best thing for colds are going to be the things your mother or grandmother taught you — tea with honey and Vicks Vapor Rub, using a humidifier, zinc, vitamin C, bone broth, staying hydrated. Those are all things without side effects that will get you through.”
About the Author
