Author: Terena Bell

The truth about attention-deficit meds and insomnia People with ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder) have a harder time falling asleep — in part, says Dr. Russell Ramsay, of the University of Pennsylvania’s Adult ADHD Treatment and Research Program, because our minds won’t stop working. “There’s a delayed sleep phase onset,” he explains, a self-regulation problem that keeps people with ADHD from “recognizing the cues for sleep [and] being able to turn those into habits.” Our circadian rhythms get thrown off by little things, like eating later, and we also have a harder time avoiding late-night technology distractions that keep us from going…

“Take two and call me in the morning.” Of all the words and phrases in the medical world, this is the one so famous, it’s a national running joke. Everyone understands what it means. Well, almost everyone. For the 21.1% of Americans who don’t speak English at home, even the most common of prescription instructions can be hard to follow. Take the phrase “once a day,” for example. In Spanish, “once” means 11. When that’s the only word on a drug label you recognize, overdose becomes easy. Of course, reading the label isn’t the only way to understand what you’re…

Take a look in your medicine cabinet and you’ll see artificial coloring everywhere: orange ibuprofen, red cough drops, purple syrups. Medicine comes in different colors for different reasons: Some capsule shades help you distinguish one dosage amount from another; differing colors separate a statin from an anti-nausea drug; and very often colors are selected by the manufacturer because they are more attractive to the consumer. After all, blue is a more marketable color for Viagra than pink, for example, so it’s made with FD&C Blue #2 aluminum lake, one of around 80 different color additives the FDA has approved for…

Learn what binding agents are and why they — not your medication — may be causing your reaction. In the ’90s, a customer walked into Norman Tomaka’s pharmacy and told him she didn’t want to take her thyroid medication anymore. Tomaka spent the next 15 minutes asking why: What about her medicine didn’t feel right? Were there other times she also felt that way? Then he called the drug’s manufacturer, who confirmed what Tomaka had begun to suspect: The company put wheat in its pills. His patient wasn’t allergic to the actual medication: She was allergic to gluten. Today, Tomaka…