Austrians taking more medicines despite move to home remedies

A survey by the Austrian health insurance fund has revealed that people are popping more pills than ever before. The number of packages of medications prescribed in Austria in the last six years has increased 5% from 98.4 to 103 million. On average, each Austrian purchases 12.63 packs of medicines annually, which means 524 pills altogether.

These results are a little surprising, given that the public perception has been that an increasing number of people have been turning to alternative medicine and that "grandma's home remedies" have been becoming more and more popular.

However, Austria is only in the middle of European countries in terms of drugs consumed. In France and the UK, for example, people consume twice as many on average, but the Dutch and the Danes take the fewest, one-third below the Austrian norm.