Based on the delivery of the Oxford London Lecture '21st Century - the last century of youth' by Professor Sarah Harper on Tuesday 13 March 2012, The Telegraph Correspondent Stephen Adams reported:
'Professor Sarah Harper, director of the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, said using drugs to prevent the worst effects of lifestyle illnesses was likely to become more and more common in the future.
Cholesterol-lowering statins are already taken by up to seven million Britons deemed to be at a higher risk of cardiovascular disease, while some academics advocate those over 45 should take low-dose aspirin to help ward off cancer.
But, in a public lecture on the world's ageing population (Oxford London Lecture 2012) Prof Harper last night (Tuesday) questioned whether the wholesale medicalisation of society was a good thing.
She wondered if taking the mantra of pharmaceutical prevention to the extreme would mean putting children with a high risk of developing heart disease in the future on statins.
She warned: "I think we may be entering a world where preventable chronic disease will not be prevented by public health measures tackling lifestyles, but increasingly by drug therapies which will control and reduce symptoms of chronic disease.'
> Telegraph Article: 'Britain risks becoming a nation of pill poppers'
