Half of pensioners are taking at least five drugs a day.
In a worrying sign of the medicalisation of the elderly, a study found the number has quadrupled in 20 years.
It rose from 12 per cent to 49 per cent – roughly 4.5million of the 9million pensioners in England.
And the proportion taking no medicine at all dropped from 20 per cent to just 7 per cent.