Women in midlife are especially vulnerable to consumer manipulation. Whether they're being sold products that promise to help them look younger, live longer, lose weight, or manage perimenopause, they're increasingly targeted by marketers promoting a range of medications, supplements, and treatments - often implying they need all of them.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original article at https://patient.info/features/general-health/too-many-pills-the-worrying-rise-of-polypharmacy-in-midlife-women
This article seems to be putting the blame for polypharmacy on the supplement industry whereas the definition was first used over 1.5 centuries ago re drugs, including prescription. To this day, it’s still largely due to over-prescription by medics. It’s how they trade.
This article neglects the, rapidly more recognised, pervasive medical misogyny, underfunding, and dismissal that women, and women’s health issues, receive within the health care system and NHS. It’s no wonder that by mid-life women are either self-prescribing/self-managing to help themselves or receiving multiple legitimate medications for conditions they are receiving little other help for or which have historically been missed or undertreated, leading to complications by mid-life. Self-management (and private care) are often the only route available to many women. So how about we focus on how these women can be better served by health services, to prevent them feeling (justifiably) like outside help is the only option.