Healthy adults overdiagnosed with chronic illnesses they don’t have

Healthy adults in the UK are increasingly being prescribed medication for chronic illnesses they don’t need to worry about, according to experts.

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In a report for the British Medical Journal, specialists express concerns that the trend towards ‘overdiagnosis’ could result in millions of people taking medicines they don’t need, potentially with side effects.

The thresholds for diagnosis of many conditions have changed over the years, meaning that doctors now have different criteria for illnesses such as asthma, cancer and heart disease.  The report suggests that many people diagnosed with these problems may never have any symptoms and are actually perfectly healthy.

The authors of the report cite research that claims a third of those diagnosed with asthma do not have the condition. It also suggests many women given osteoporosis prevention treatment may be harmed by the medicines when they’re really at low risk of bone problems. It uses the eight million people in the UK who currently take precautionary statins as an example.

“Increasingly we’ve come to regard being ‘at risk’ of future disease as being a disease in its own right,” explains co-author of the report, Ray Moynihan. “Evidence mounts that we’re harming the healthy.”

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The report blames a fear of underdiagnosis and pressures put on medical professionals by both drug companies and governments with vested interests.

The authors propose revising the criteria for diagnosis of chronic illnesses, to prevent an entire generation of older people taking unnecessary medicines for the rest of their lives.