The epidemic of opioid addiction in the U.S. is increasingly affecting older Americans, The Wall Street Journal reports.
According to data from the CDC cited by WSJ, Americans between ages 45 and 64 accounted for almost half — 44 percent — of deaths attributed to overdoses in 2013 and 2014, and the proportion of adults age 50 and older seeking opioid addiction treatment has increased significantly over recent decades.
Although many drug overdose deaths are attributed to illicit street drugs, prescription opioids pose a growing problem, the CDC reported in December.
"Even one prescription can be a trigger for long-term use," Michael Barnett, MD, assistant professor of health policy and management at Boston-based Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health told WSJ. "We have to figure out how to encourage safe prescribing without undertreating pain."
The CDC last month released data that shows patients who take long-acting drugs have the highest chance of long-term use, according to the report. Analysis of the data found that the short-acting drug tramadol, which many health experts previously thought carried a lower risk for abuse, had the next-highest probability for long-term use. The data also showed that one in seven people who refilled their opioid prescription or had a second prescription authorized were still taking the drugs after a year, according to the report.