At least in the US, a majority of adults are on at least one prescription drug and a large number have two or more. Our diets have also changed to include a much larger proportion of vegetable oils, processed foods, and soy to name a few.
This is wild to me. I find it hard to believe that this is not a bad thing.
I just started a medication for a disease that was just an unlucky roll of the genetic die. Before, my options would have been to just slow decline until I died for a decade. Now. I'll take this for the next 40 or more years of my life. I imagine that was a lot of people before we started having a lot of medicines. Diabetes used to be a death sentence a century ago after all.
That is absolutely true for some, but for some of the most common medications the underlying conditions themselves may be avoidable. Being able to get prescription drugs for short term ailments is extremely beneficial, but short of a truly permanent condition I have to assume quality of life would be better if the drug wasn't deemed medically necessary (meaning it actually wasn't needed, not trying to parse medical diagnoses).
No one is arguing that all prescriptions are the best solution to all problems.
You may have misread my comment, I wasn't arguing against this at all. I was raising that assuming a majority of Americans being prescribed to at least one pharmaceutical isn't really a sign of a higher quality of life.
Your comment sort of needs the assumption that the other poster thinks they are the best solution to all problems and directly indicate quality of life (rather than representing an improvement to quality of life for people on them).
What is still wild to me is that so many people in that age range would suffer without drugs. I would expect more conditions to crop up as people mature but not this soon at this rate.
Some of the most common prescriptions will actually get you deemed unfit for military service. That's not great if the worst happens and we have to stand up a large army.
Both trends have been growing over the last 50 or so years. If the change in diet or medication would directly impact an individual on a short term that wouldn't line up with the data in this article. If the trends accumulate slowly in a person, or if they impact an individual's children, the trends could line up.
Sex drive is an extremely complex topic. By no means am I claiming that these are definitely factors, but the article is pretty light on links for the potential factors it proposes. The idea that, for example, an increase in vegetable oil consumption or even specifically soy could accumulate over time and impact hormonal balances in children isn't out of the question.
More importantly, given how hand-wavy the article is with regards to the factors it raises, ignoring diet, prescription drugs, and overall health seems like a huge miss.