The number of prescribed medications might be used as proxy indicator for general health status, in models to predict mortality risk. To estimate the time-varying association between active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) count and all-cause mortality, we analyzed data from a population cohort in Heidelberg (Germany), including 25,546 participants with information on medication use collected at 3-yearly intervals from baseline recruitment (1994-1998) until end of 2014. A total of 4548 deaths were recorded until May 2019. Time-dependent modeling was used to estimate hazard ratios (HR) and their 95% confidence intervals (CI) for all-cause mortality in relation to number of APIs used, within three strata of age (≤ 60, > 60 to ≤ 70 and > 70 years) and adjusting for lifestyle-related risk factors. For participants reporting commonly used APIs only (i.e., API types accounting for up to 80% of medication time in the population) total API counts showed no association with mortality risk within any age stratum. However, when at least one of the APIs was less common, the total API count showed a strong relationship with all-cause mortality especially up to age ≤ 60, with HR up to 3.70 (95% CI 2.30-5.94) with 5 or 6 medications and 8.19 (5.61-11.97) for 7 or more APIs (versus none). Between > 60 and 70 years of age this risk association was weaker, with HR up to 3.96 (3.14-4.98) for 7 or more APIs, and above 70 years it was weakened further (HR up to 1.54 (1.34-1.79)). Multiple API-use may predict mortality risk in middle-aged and women and men ≤ 70 years, but only if it includes at least one less frequently used API type. With advancing age, and multiple medication becomes increasingly prevalent, the association of API count with risk of death progressively attenuates, suggesting an increasing complexity with age of underlying mortality determinants.
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