Why Is Chronic Med Use Skyrocketing in Teen Girls?

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The use of prescription drugs to treat chronic conditions, such as diabetes and high blood pressure, is on the rise in the United States, according to a new study. Not a big surprise if we’re talking about adults, right? But there’s a twist: The study looked at children and teens, not aging boomers.

It seems that girls—particularly teen girls—are far likelier to be prescribed drugs than in the past, and the reasons aren’t entirely clear.

One reason for the rise is probably the obesity boom. Between 2002 and 2005, the use of diabetes medication alone doubled in kids. Excess weight can lead to type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. More children seem to be getting drugs to treat those conditions.

But it’s also not that simple, according to the study in the November issue of Pediatrics. “When we look at obesity rates in children, historically the greater rates of obesity and growth in obesity rates have been in boys rather than girls,” said study author Emily R. Cox, PhD, from Express Scripts, Inc. in St. Louis.

And although type 2 diabetes is slightly more common in girls than boys (0.18% vs. 0.12%), it doesn’t explain the 147% jump in diabetes medications given to girls (mostly those ages 10–19) in 2002-2005. Boys saw only a 39% rise during the same period.

ADHD drug prescriptions also went up more in girls than boys (63% vs. 33%), mostly due to a 114% rise in girls ages 15-19. Antidepressant use dropped by 4% in boys, but rose by 7% in girls.

Why are girls more medicated?

One reason the girls receive more meds than boys may be that girls and young women are nearly twice as likely to visit their doctors than males of the same age. But the gender gap is “one of the more surprising findings in this study,” Cox says, and it leads to more questions than answers.

Girls could be given the diabetes drug metformin to treat polycystic ovary syndrome, although that use is somewhat controversial. Greater awareness of ADHD symptoms in girls may have led to more prescriptions of medication to treat attention problems.

But parents should be aware that medications are not risk-free, and they can be used for other purposes. A rise in girls’ use of diuretics, which are drugs used to treat high blood pressure, “is particularly concerning given their known potential for abuse in eating-disorder patients,” the authors wrote in the study.

ADHD medications can also be abused as weight-loss drugs and have been used inappropriately by teens as academic performance–enhancing drugs, Cox says.

Prescription increase resulted from government action

In 1997, a law was passed to encourage pharmaceutical companies to develop more therapies for children. The law led to more testing, and about 100 drugs were approved for use in children between 1998 and 2005.

That may have made doctors more comfortable prescribing drugs in children, says Cox.

“I think that’s good thing,” she says. “But are these all appropriately used? I don’t think so.”

And drugs aimed at chronic conditions can result in long-term use. Cox says the study suggests children and teens are now taking more medications that they may need for a lifetime.

“I think overall we’re seeing growing number of children being treated for chronic conditions that they will take with them into their adult years,” says Cox. “We can’t ignore the enormous cost to the health-care system as well.”

Overall, the study found that asthma medications increased 46.5% between 2002 and 2005, from 1.1 million to 1.5 million children; attention deficit hyperactivity drugs increased by 40%, from 960,000 to 1.3 million; and medication for type 2 diabetes increased from 11,000 to 23,000 children.

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