Approved Research

Effects of medication on mortality risks in the general population.

Lay summary

Our health often depends on the medicines we take, especially for chronic illnesses. But not all medicines are equally effective, and some might even have harmful side effects that could affect how long we live. Given that many people take multiple medicines, it's important to understand how different types of medicines affect our survival.

We're planning to use data from the UK Biobank, a large health database, to study this. We'll look at every type of medicine in the Biobank, and compare people who take each medicine to similar people who don't. We'll use sophisticated statistical methods to make these comparisons as fair as possible.

Our goals are to determine which types of medicines are associated with the greatest and smallest risks of death, and to understand how these risks differ between people taking different combinations of medicines. We're also interested in whether taking certain types of medicines together can change their impact on survival.

This research is based on the idea that different medicines might have different effects on our health and longevity. By studying this in detail, we can help doctors prescribe the most effective and safest medicines to their patients. It might also help policymakers decide which medicines should be recommended or avoided, and could guide the development of new, safer medicines.

We expect the study to take about two years. Its findings could have a big impact on public health, by improving our understanding of how medicines affect our survival. In the long run, this could lead to changes in how medicines are prescribed, used and developed, potentially improving health and extending lives.