We are all aware that medications have side effects. We hear the long list rattled off at the end of every commercial and we read the paragraphs filling the pages of the package inserts. Despite the warnings, we mostly choose to take the medication in a desperate attempt to cure…
Pot, marijuana, reefer — whatever you call it, cannabis is the hot, new cure (some say) for everything from PTSD to cancer. It’s quickly being legalized in countries worldwide and, so far, in 33 US states. Yet there are still major gaps in our knowledge and evidence about its medicinal…
Prescription heart medications are so common — millions of Americans currently take at least one to treat everything from high blood pressure and high cholesterol to heart failure and stroke — that it’s easy to assume that they are easy on your system, that the side effects must be minor because so many people take them. Not so. One of the two top reasons patients give for not taking heart drugs as prescribed is “fear of side effects.”
New FDA-approved anti-obesity drugs, novel devices, implants, and surgical approaches have all hit the market but do they work and are they safe? Is a combination of diet and exercise better than drugs?
If you spend any time talking about health with older Americans, the topic of beta blockers will inevitably come up. But what are they, and how dangerous is it to take them? And why do so many people seem to need them? “The number one use of beta blockers in…
