More women overdosing on painkillers, cdc report finds

The amount of women overdosing on prescription pain relievers for example Vicodin and OxyCotin has elevated by greater than 400 percent previously decade, a brand new national survey on drug abuse and health in the Cdc and Prevention finds.

About 18 women die every single day from taking prescription pain relievers, based on the survey. Since 2007, more ladies have died from overdosing on prescription pain relievers compared to automobile accidents. And dying rates from opioid abuse in females tend to be more than four occasions greater than dying by cocaine and heroin use combined.

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This Year, nearly millions of women visited emergency rooms for drug misuse or abuse, and 6,600 of these died. Prescription substance abuse by women bending between 2004 and 2010.

"I've found these amounts very troubling, though not especially surprising," stated Susan Promote, the v . p . and director of policy research and analysis for CASA Columbia, a brand new You are able to think tank that studies drug abuse and it is impact on public policy.

Since women are more compact than males, they think the outcome of prescription medications on more compact doses, stated Promote

Additionally they become hooked on prescription medications more rapidly than males and may use prescription medications in conjunction with other drugs, for example alcohol, based on the report.

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Promote also stated that drug marketing is often targeted squarely at women. This might explain why women are 50 % more prone to leave a doctor's office having a prescription for any controlled substance in hands, even when they have received exactly the same diagnosis like a guy, she stated.

But overdosing on pain relievers rose 265 percent in males within the decade taught in survey.

The report also notes that the increase in deaths carefully mirrors elevated prescribing of those drugs by doctors. But nearly one-third of males and ladies who used these drugs began if you take them for nonmedical reasons. Greater than 70 % of prescription medication abusers first got them from buddies or relatives. Only five percent obtained their medications from drug sellers or bought them on the web.

To create the issue in check, the CDC' suggests better monitoring of prescription medications and much more healthcare education for companies and patients.

18 women each day die from prescription pill overdose. Credit: Toby Talbot/AP Photo.

While Promote agreed with this particular approach, she thinks a larger approach is required.

"We reside in a pill for each ill society, and prescription medications are simply one part of the overall addiction problem we've within this country," Promote stated. "When we only concentrate on one sort of drug at any given time we're playing a pricey bet on whack-a-mole. We pound lower on one sort of drug simply to begin to see the problem emerge inside a diff form."