You Need to Take Your Meds to Have Them Work

‘Compliance’ is the term – actually taking the medications that are prescribed for you. A good example of the need for compliance has recently been reported. A 5-year double-blind, placebo-controlled study of calcium supplements measured the rate of fractures due to osteoporosis. The study was done in Australia; the supplement was calcium carbonate, and the patients were women over 70.

Overall, analyzing all the subjects who entered the study, there was no reduction of fractures with calcium supplements. But when compliance was included, there was a different story. Only 830 of the 1460 women entering the study took their calcium supplements, or the placebo, regularly. In these women – 57% of the total - the fracture rate was 10% for the calcium patients and15.5% for the placebo patients, a significant difference.

You may think that the difference between compliant and non-compliant patients was too strict. That wasn’t the case; a whopping 43% of patients were non-compliant, in that they took less than 80% of their medication. No wonder people may complain that medications don’t work – nearly half of them may only be taking less than 80% of the prescribed doses!

Of course, it’s important to try to find out why people don’t take their medications; there are a number of possible reasons, which the doctor should probably explore beforehand in the case of important treatments.

If you can follow my contorted argumentation, you’ll be careful to take what the doctor prescribes – unless you have some sort of side effect, of course.