The Top Drugs for Older Adults to Avoid

You fill a prescription, a medication you’ve relied on before. A few days later, you experience a troubling side effect. You read online that no one your age should take this medication.

What happened?

Drug Side Effects and Older Adults

Two pharmacists say the aging process is to blame, and they reveal here the names of medications on their “black list” that older adults may want to avoid.

“Prescribing medications for people 65 and older can be more challenging, because some drugs can be more toxic or cause more side effects than when you were younger,” says Kirby Lee, a pharmacist and associate professor of clinical pharmacy at the University of California at San Francisco. “As your body ages, it absorbs medications differently. They can be metabolized differently by your liver and excreted differently by your kidneys, so you may be more sensitive to some medications.” Click here to continue reading.