Correct doses save lives
‘All things are poison, and nothing is without poison;
the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison’
Paracelsus 1493-1541
Are you prescribing the correct dose?
This website has been created to share research and dosing tables to guide medical professionals as they seek to achieve correct dosing of drugs for their patients. Optimal dosing assures our ability to maximise both benefits and safety. Access to downloadable materials is only AU$19.50 per year for professional access and AU$9.50 per year for medical student access, and you can cancel at any time.
Lower doses are sufficient
Lower doses are often sufficient when drugs are well targeted, and improve wellbeing, and are appropriate in stable disease and prevention.
Doses should be moderated when drugs are used in combination (polypharmacy), because of the high risk of interactions and increased side effects.
Lower doses are safer
Drugs are safer and often sufficient at doses below the middle of the dose response curve (effective dose 50). Total mortality (which summates drug benefits and harms) in the largest placebo-controlled clinical trials after stroke or heart attack was not improved with (mean) daily doses over: 30 mg of aspirin, 40mg pravastatin (equivalent to 2 mg atorvastatin!), 25 mg metoprolol
Aspirin dosing example
With increased dose, e.g. aspirin, benefits plateau and may be overtaken by the inevitable increases in a variety of adverse effects, some potentially lethal.
Dosing below or near ED50
Dosing below or near ED50 is safer and resembles not pushing the ‘revs’ in a motor vehicle past half-way to the red (maximum, Emax).
Prescribing of many drugs, e.g. antidepressants and statins, can be way into the red.
Correct Dosing Resources Available
Full Bibliography
Download the list of citations used in our research
Dose Tables
Download one or many specific dose tables
Reviews
Download reviews of Rational Dosing in PDF format
Get Access To Dose Tables
Subscribe to Correct Dosing to get full access to Dose Tables as they are published. All tables are available as PDF documents for easy downloading and printing. Here is a sample of the opening section of our Statin Dose Table.
Correct Dosing and Hypertension
Website contributor, Professor Simon Dimmitt, was a guest on the podcast, This Medical Life, in which he discussed the concept of correct dosing in relation to hypertension treatment and maintenance.
Prescribing Aspirin
Website contributor, Professor Simon Dimmitt, returned as a guest on the podcast, This Medical Life, to contribute to episode 32, Aspirin: From Poultices To Pills.