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If you’re one of the millions of older Americans on multiple medications, it may be time to ask your doctor if all those drugs are doing you more harm than good. There’s a growing trend when

it comes to prescribing medications, and surprisingly, it has nothing to do with writing new prescriptions. Instead, it’s all about working with your doctor to scale back on unnecessary

pills and potions.  Deprescribing, as it’s called, is garnering significant interest from older adults. A recent report from the University of Michigan’s National Poll on Healthy Aging found

that more than 80 percent of people ages 50 and older who take prescription medication said they’d like to stop one or more of them if their doctor gave the green light — and for good

reason.   The more medications a person takes, the more likely they are to experience side effects from medication interactions, says Milta Little, a geriatric medicine specialist and an

associate professor of medicine at Duke University School of Medicine. And these side effects can lead to falls, frailty, confusion, weight loss — even death, research shows. Every day, more

than 750 U.S. adults 65 and older are hospitalized for medication-related reactions, according to a report from the nonprofit Lown Institute. The same report predicts that these reactions

will cause 150,000 premature deaths by 2030. Sometimes a medication prescribed to treat one condition can worsen another health issue or cause a new one, the National Institute on Aging

says. Age-related changes in the body can also affect the way medication is absorbed and used, increasing the risk for complications in older individuals. “So the more medications you’re on,

you’re just putting yourself at more risk of some of these preventable issues,” says Shannan Takhar, assistant professor of clinical pharmacy at the University of California, San Francisco

School of Pharmacy and an ambulatory care pharmacist at UC Davis Health. The problem is that older adults tend to take a lot of medications. According to the National Center for Health

Statistics, roughly 1 in 5 adults ages 40 to 79 take five or more prescription medications. Among adults 65 and older, more than 40 percent take five or more prescription drugs, the Lown

Institute reports, and nearly 20 percent take more than 10. When over-the-counter drugs are included, two-thirds of adults 65 and older take five or more medications.