Fibromyalgia has been studied since the early 1800s and referred to by a variety of former names, including muscular rheumatism and fibrositis. Fibromyalgia was considered a controversial diagnosis, with some authors contending that the disorder is a ‘non-disease’, due in part to a lack of objective laboratory tests or medical imaging studies to confirm the diagnosis. Fibromyalgia was recognized by the American Medical Association as an illness and a cause of disability in 1987.

To date, there are estimated between 3 and 6 million Americans affected with Fibromyalgia. Fibromyalgia affects predominantly women (over 80%) between the ages of 35 and 55.

Symptoms of Fibromyalgia

All symptoms of fibromyalgia are caused by cellular oxygen deprivation. Fibromyalgia symptoms include chronic pain in the muscles, fatigue, painful tender points or trigger points, unrefreshing sleep, irritable bowel syndrome, headaches, TMJ disorders, anxiety, depression, restless legs syndrome, numbness or tingling in the hands and feet, poor concentration, painful menstrual periods, and heightened sensitivity to odors, noises, bright lights and touch.

Many other illnesses can occur in conjunction with fibromyalgia including bladder and colon spasms, migraine headaches, asthma, and allergies. In fact, fibromyalgia can cause the chest muscles to tighten with a prolonged, intense pain that may make you feel as if you are having a heart attack.

Fibromyalgia Treatment

Treatment of Fibromyalgia must be tailored to each patient and a team approach is often needed with your doctor, a physical therapist, possibly other health professionals, and most importantly, yourself, all playing an active role.

Fibromyalgia patients should maintain a healthy diet low in animal fat and high in fiber, with plenty of whole grains, fresh fruits, and vegetables. Although some people with fibromyalgia report feeling better when they eat or avoid certain foods, no specific diet has been proven to influence fibromyalgia. If diet, exercise, and adequate rest do not relieve the symptoms of fibromyalgia, medications or alternative treatments may be used..

While there is still much to learn, these new findings suggest several options for fibromyalgia therapy, including “antioxidants” to limit oxidative damage and nutrients that inhibit pain receptors and transmitters in the muscles. Unfortunately, the drugs prescribed to treat symptoms of fibromyalgia all have adverse side effects and are not recommended for long term use. On the other hand, natural alternative products offer positive results with no side effects or concern about continued use.

Exercise And Fibromyalgia

Exercise, or increasing physical activity, is one of the most important things you can do to reduce your fibromyalgia pain. An important aspect of pain management is a regular program of gentle exercise and stretching, which helps maintain muscle tone and reduces pain and stiffness caused by Fibromyalgia. Alternative treatments, nutrition and relaxation techniques play an important role in Fibromyalgia treatment as well.

Conclusion

Becoming educated about Fibromyalgia gives the patient more potential for improvement. Fibromyalgia can be managed, but it needs to be managed differently than a standard disease. Fibromyalgia is a debilitating syndrome that is often associated with impaired cellular energy metabolism. Fibromyalgia is a chronic condition and symptoms may be constant or intermittent for years or even a lifetime.

It may be reassuring to know, however, that fibromyalgia isn’t life-threatening. Fibromyalgia does not harm your muscles, joints, or organs, and there are many things you can do to control it. Fibromyalgia is more common in relatives of patients who suffer with it, suggesting the contribution of both genetic and environmental factors. Fibromyalgia has been linked to stressful or traumatic events, such as car accidents repetitive injuries/Illnesses, and certain diseases.

Now, here is the good news I told you about earlier. Although there is as yet no generally accepted cure for fibromyalgia, there is another application that is gaining attention and offers hope. New research findings continue to bring us closer to understanding the basic mechanisms of fibromyalgia and new alternative treatments to help control it.

Many people are quite aware of body fitness and regularly go to a gym. They pay much attention to a balanced diet and moderate exercises. However, the eye as the most important organ of the body may be neglected by some fitness-aware people.

In some cases, maintaining body fitness also helps the eyes keep healthy. Body health generally improves oxygen levels in the eyes. Moreover, regular participants in outdoor activities are believed to suffer myopia at a much lower risk, because they frequently focus at long distance objects.

However, general body health is inadequate to maintain eye fitness. Special ways that directly target at the eyes are needed. The most basic requirement is to receive routine eye checkups. This is quite necessary in order to preserve the eyesight and general ocular health. Regular eye exams from an optician or optometrist are critical in detecting visual problems.

A well balanced diet is beneficial to not only one’s general health, but also eye health. Leafy vegetables and fruits have plentiful of carotenoids that are essential to maintain macular health. These nutrients can effectively prevent various macular problems.

Supplements can also provide adequate carotenoids if a person can not consume enough fruits and vegetables. Common ingredients of supplements include antioxidants, zinc, selenium, vitamin A, B, C and E, lutein as well as zeaxanthin. Mucus that keeps the conjunctiva health can be encouraged by selenium and antioxidants vitamins. And macular degeneration prevention can benefit from antioxidants and zinc. In addition, lutein and zeaxanthin are responsible for absorbing blue light. Blue rays can damage the retina which is the light sensitive layer of the eyes.

Smoking is considered to be harmful to eye health. This addictive habit is a factor in macular degeneration. Age-related macular degeneration usually affects central vision and causes vision loss. Moreover, smoking is also reported to increase the risk of developing cataracts.

Often the term COPD is used to define two chronic conditions – Chronic Bronchitis and Emphysema which can either occur separately or together. However, COPD as it commonly occurs has these two illnesses appearing together. Chronic Bronchitis is a condition which has inflammation and swelling of the mucus lining of the trachea. This leads to excessive mucus that blocks the airways and causes cough that persists for several months and even years. The narrowing of the airways also makes many sufferers of the disease feel breathless.

Emphysema occurs when tiny air sacs called alveoli deep in your lungs become enlarged and stretched. This impairs their normal function and ability to inflate and deflate with air, as you breathe. Lungs will therefore not get adequate air which makes one experience breathlessness and difficulty while breathing which are early symptoms of emphysema.

The main characteristic of COPD, airflow limitation is not fully reversible but treatment can arrest further damage and manage the disease.

Common Causes of COPD

The great majority of cases of chronic bronchitis and emphysema are caused by long-term smoking. People in certain professions such as mining and chemical industries have routing occupational exposure to dust, harmful chemicals or fumes. Such occupational hazards are also known to cause COPD because inhaling these irritants affects the mucus lining of the airways causing cough and mucus that lead to either or both Chronic bronchitis and emphysema.

Air pollution by itself is not known to cause COPD in non-smokers but it seems to advance the onset of COPD in smokers. Secondhand smokers are also likely to suffer from COPD after several years of exposure to smoke.

There is a rare type of emphysema referred to as A1AD-related emphysema which is a genetic condition in which a person’s body lacks a protein called alpha1-antitrypsin. This protein normally helps protect the lungs. People with alpha1-antitrypsin deficiency who are smokers are also more susceptible to emphysema.

Major Symptoms of COPD

Sufferers of COPD are known to have varying symptoms but they almost always find that moderate daily activities also start to leave them short of breath. Bouts of bronchitis every few weeks or months, chronic cough and phlegm are some of the symptoms of COPD. In some instances, symptoms of COPD can be markedly similar to that of asthma. Only your doctor can determine if your symptoms are indicative of COPD after advising you breathing tests like spirometry. Your healthcare professional may also require you to take chest X-rays to rule out other pulmonary ailments.

What to Do If Diagnosed With COPD

The single most important step one can take when diagnosed with COPD is to quit smoking immediately if one is a smoker. Your persistent cough will start to relieve slowly, ease your breathlessness and you’ll also succeed in slowing down further lung damage. Your best bet would be following self-management options as advised by your doctor and adherence to prescribed medications.

Because of the long latency period of mesothelioma, the average age of patients is between 50 and 70 years. Mesothelioma affects men most due to the high exposure of asbestos in industrial typed jobs. Mesothelioma symptoms include respiratory problems, shortness of breath, continual cough and pneumonia. Other mesothelioma symptoms include weight loss, abdominal problems and swelling. In some mesothelioma patients, the mesothelioma symptoms are quite muted, making it hard for mesothelioma doctors to diagnose.

Mesothelioma doctors specialize in the study, research, and treatments of Mesothelioma cancers.

Mesothelioma (or the cancer of the mesothelium) is a disease in which cells become abnormal and replicate without control. During Mesothelioma, these cells will invade and damage tissues and organs. Mesothelioma cancer cells can spread throughout the body causing death.

Mesothelioma treatments and Mesothelioma clinical trials and tests
There are many mesothelioma treatment options available. Treatments include surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy and the mesothelioma treatment depends on the patient’s age, general health and stage of the cancer. There has been much mesothelioma research conducted throughout the past two years to find new treatment methods. Click here to read more about mesothelioma treatment techniques.

Through mesothelioma research, The National Cancer Institute has sponsored mesothelioma tests and clinical trials that are designed to find new treatment methods. Because of the increase in number of mesothelioma cases in the United States, both governments have increased funding for mesothelioma research. Mesothelioma research and clinical trials have been successful in developing new techniques to fight this cancer and the outlook for more advanced mesothelioma treatments is promising.

Surgery is the most common treatment method for malignant mesothelioma. Tissues and linings affected by mesothelioma are removed by the doctor and may include the lung or even diaphragm.

A second mesothelioma treatment method is radiation therapy through the use of high energy x-rays that kill the cancer cells. Radiation therapy can be outside or inside the body.

A third mesothelioma treatment method is chemotherapy. Through pills or drugs through needles, chemotherapy drugs are used to kill cancer cells.

A new mesothelioma treatment method is called intraoperative photodynamic therapy. In this treatment, light and drugs are used to kill cancer cells during surgery for early stages of mesothelioma in the chest. Although there are numerous treatments and drugs for mesothelioma, doctors are loosing the battle against this deadly disease. Most mesothelioma treatments involve old techniques combined with different drug cocktails. However, in most cases, these mesothelioma treatments have many side effects including organ damage, nausea, increase in heart failure etc. The rush to find a more effective mesothelioma treatment or even cure is ongoing at numerous clinical labs across the nation. Let’s hope that the mesothelioma treatments will one day erradicate mesothelioma cancer and asbestosis.

Researchers say more than 60,000 young children in the U.S. are treated in emergency rooms each year for accidental overdoses because they got into medicines when their parent or caregiver wasn’t looking.

Those risks may increase during the holidays when visitors leave coats, purses, or suitcases with medications where young children can reach them.

“Parents may not be aware of the danger posed by leaving medications where young children can reach them. In recent years, the number of accidental overdoses in young children has increased by 20%,” Dan Budnitz, MD, MPH, director of the CDC’s Medication Safety Program, says in a news release.

Each year, one in every 150 2-year-olds is treated in an emergency room for an unintentional drug overdose, usually after finding and eating or drinking medications without adult supervision.

Keep Drugs Up and Away

To combat the problem, the CDC and a coalition of health partners are launching a new “Up and Away and Out of Sight” campaign to encourage parents to protect children from accidental drug overdoses.

Since the 1970s, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has required most medications to have child-resistant packaging, an improvement that has saved hundreds of children’s lives. But that may not be enough.

“Even with improvements to packaging, no medication package can be 100% childproof,” Richard Dart, MD, PhD, president of the American Association of Poison Control Centers, says in the release. “Poison centers receive calls every day about young children getting into medicines without adult supervision; that’s why we encourage all parents and caregivers to follow these simple steps to ensure their child’s safety.”

Those steps include:

• Put all medications and vitamins in a place children can’t reach.
• Put medicines and vitamins away every time you use them. Never leave them out on a kitchen counter or at a sick child’s bedside, even if you have to give the medicine again in a few hours.
• Listen for the click to make sure the safety cap on medicines is locked.
• Teach children about medicine safety. Never tell children that medicine is candy to get them to take it.
• Tell guests about medicine safety. Ask house guests and visitors to keep purses, bags, and coats that have medicines in them up and away and out of sight when they are visiting.
• Be prepared in case of emergency. Program the poison control phone number into home and cell phones (1-800-222-1222).

HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the U.S., with an estimated 6.2 million new infections each year.

Two types of the virus, HPV 16 and HPV 18, are responsible for 70% of cervical cancers. HPV also causes genital warts and can lead to cancer of the cervix, vagina, vulva, penis, and anus.

With the approval of the first vaccine to prevent HPV infection in 2006 and the second in 2009, concerns emerged that vaccination might promote sexually risky behaviors.

Results from the CDC survey suggest these concerns may be unfounded, but researcher Nicole C. Liddon, PhD, warns against over-interpreting the findings.

Liddon is a research scientist with the CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health.

“This survey represents a snapshot in time, and we cannot rule out the possibility that the HPV vaccine leads to sexual risk taking,” she tells WebMD. “But this should help calm concerns of parents and (health care) providers to some degree.”

HPV Common in the Sexually Active

Among non-vaccinated girls and boys, infection with HPV is very common following initiation of sexual behavior.

By one estimate, 24% of teenaged girls in the U.S. between the ages of 14 and 19 and 45% of women in their early to mid-20s are infected with HPV.

For this reason, vaccination efforts target girls who are not yet sexually active. Current recommendations call for vaccination of girls and women ages 11-26 with the Cervarix or Gardasil vaccine. The Gardasil vaccine is also approved for use in boys.

In an effort to examine vaccine coverage rates and whether being vaccinated against HPV has any impact on behavior, Liddon and colleagues examined survey data from more than 1,200 young women between the ages of 15 and 24.

The women were participants in a CDC-sponsored survey examining sexual and reproductive health issues among teens and young adults.

The young women were surveyed between 2007 and 2008, after the first HPV vaccine became available.

Twice as many teens as women in their early 20s reported initiating the three-dose HPV vaccine series (30% vs. 15%). Liddon says this finding was not surprising because early efforts to promote the vaccine focused on teens.

Among the surveyed teens, race did not appear to be a factor in HPV vaccine coverage, but young women with health insurance were more likely to have had initiated HPV vaccination than young women without health insurance.

The survey did not include information on the young women’s ages at HPV vaccination, and it was not clear if vaccination occurred before or after they became sexually active.

Among sexually active women, those who had initiated HPV vaccination were more likely than unvaccinated women to report that they consistently used a condom during sex.

The researchers conclude that this may be because young women who are more concerned about practicing safe sex are also more likely to be vaccinated against HPV.

HPV Vaccination Rates Lagging

In a report released last August, CDC officials reported that HPV vaccination rates among teens are lagging behind two other vaccines introduced for the age group at close to the same time.

Melinda Wharton, MD, MPH, of the CDC, says it appears many health care providers are not offering the HPV vaccine to their young female patients at age 11 or 12 as recommended, but are instead vaccinating girls later.

Wharton is deputy director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

“There is a sense that it is OK to wait until closer to the time that teens become sexually active,” she tells WebMD. “The problem is that you may be waiting until it is too late for vaccination to have an impact.”

She says pediatricians and other health care providers need to recommend the HPV vaccine as strongly as they recommend other immunizations.

A new study suggests mothers who work part time, especially when their children are babies and preschool age, have less symptoms of depression and better self-reported health than mothers who stay home.

In fact, in many areas, the emotional well-being and health of moms working part time was no different from mothers holding down full-time positions — even if there were differences in paychecks.

“A mother’s economic role is central to family life, and it supports her well-being and her parenting,” says researcher Cheryl Buehler, PhD. Previous research has looked at whether or not a mother was working and how this affected her children. But those results have been inconsistent.

Yet there’s been little study of part-time work in particular, and its effect on motherhood, family life, and parenting in general.

In this study, researchers wanted to find out whether a mother’s part-time work was more similar to those who stay at home or those who work full time. Working part time was considered anything between one and 32 hours of work a week.

Researchers reviewed data from more than 1,300 mothers across the U.S. Information was collected from seven different interviews with mothers over a 10-year period beginning in 1991.

Mom’s Part-Time Perks

As expected, mothers who worked part time tended to have fewer work and family conflicts and were more involved in their child’s schooling than their full-time peers.

They also provided more learning opportunities both inside the home, such as reading books, and outside of it, such as visiting parks or museums.

In addition, part timers appeared to have a gentler touch when it came to parenting. They were shown to be more sensitive with their preschool-age children than full timers and even stay-at-home mothers.

“Work offers mothers real important opportunities and resources to minimize social isolation and enrich their social development and well-being,” says Buehler. She is a professor of human development and family studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. “It gives mothers tools, ideas, and strategies when raising a child.”

On the job, mothers are involved in problem solving, grappling with different points of view, and handling diverse personalities, Buehler tells WebMD. And all these skills can be taken home and put to use, especially as children get older.

Buehler also found it interesting that although mothers who worked full time reported more work-family conflicts, this stress did not appear to affect the women’s psychological well-being. In other words, it was not translating into more depressive symptoms, such as feeling down or trouble sleeping.

Mothers working part time did more housework and childcare than full-time working mothers. And having a part-time job did not increase a couple’s intimacy.

The Rewards of Work

Since the study spanned a decade, it followed mothers from when their child was a baby until sixth grade. And while roughly 25% of mothers worked part time over this period, employment status shifted a lot between not working, part-time jobs, and full-time positions.

Movement within the work force is even truer in today’s economic climate, where both mothers and fathers are taking work when and where they can get it.

“In terms of parenting and balancing work and home, being a part-time worker provides the best of both worlds for mothers,” says Jennifer Fraone, who was not involved in the study. She is an assistant director of the Boston College Center for Work & Family in Chestnut Hill, Mass. This seems intuitive, she says, because they have more time.

Fraone, a part-time working mother, says she can be both an involved mom and a talented employee. Mothers like her may benefit from the social aspects of work, the increased financial stability, and from being challenged or feeling fulfilled on the job.

“One thing I really dislike is the ‘mommy wars’ conflict — [the notion] that one situation, working or staying home, is better than another,” Fraone tells WebMD. “This is a very personal decision for every woman and for every couple.”

But it’s her hope that from research like this, more companies might think “outside the box” and consider creating more part time and flexible work arrangements for mothers.

But those gains aren’t being shared by everyone. A case in point: A new study shows that rates of colon and rectal cancers have climbed in younger adults over the last decade.

That’s happening even as colorectal cancer rates have dropped steadily in adults over 50, the age most people are advised to start screening for the disease.

Researchers aren’t sure what’s causing the increase in younger adults. But they say they hope their study will raise awareness among younger patients and their doctors, who may dismiss cancer as a cause of symptoms.

“These young people are getting ignored. They’ve had symptoms for a year or a year and a half before they finally get diagnosed,” says researcher Y. Nancy You, MD, a surgeon at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.

Tracking Trends in Colon Cancer
The study looked at nearly 600,000 colorectal cancer cases reported to a national registry between 1998 and 2007.

As expected, cancer was much more common in the older age group. About 89% of the cases were seen in adults over age 50.

But while colorectal cancer cases have dropped steadily in adults over 50, they increased by more than 2% each year in younger adults.

The increase was highest for rectal cancers, which jumped nearly 4% each year. Colon cancer rates rose nearly 3% per year.

To compound the problem, doctors say many people may not suspect cancer when symptoms like bleeding, abdominal pain, or a change in bowel habits strike someone in their 30s or 40s.

“Most young people, when they have these types of symptoms, they are not thinking that they have cancer. Then they go to their physician and the physician isn’t thinking that they have cancer,” says Rebecca Siegel, MPH, an epidemiologist with the American Cancer Society in Atlanta.

The result is often a delay in diagnosis.

The study found that younger adults were more likely than older adults to be diagnosed with late-stage cancers, which are harder to treat.

People in their 30s were about 20% more likely than other age groups to be diagnosed when their cancers were stage III or IV, with stage IV being the most severe grade of the disease. Other factors that increased the risk for having an advanced cancer at diagnosis were being African-American or lacking health insurance.

“It’s cause for concern,” says Siegel, who was not involved in the study. “And hopefully, it will spur additional research to try to identify what’s causing this trend.”

The study is published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. It isn’t the first to spot the uptick, but it is the largest so far to note the increase.

Women who received their first diagnosis when they were 40 or younger and women with so-called triple-negative breast tumors that are often difficult to treat are at particularly heightened risk, says Alexandra J. van den Broek, MSc, a doctoral candidate at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam.

The study involved more than 5,000 women diagnosed with breast cancer before they turned 50; 211 were carriers of the BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations. Over a nine-year period, 9% developed cancer in their other breast.

Women who were not carriers faced a 6% risk of developing cancer in their other breast over 10 years, compared with 11% for BRCA2 carriers and 20% for BRCA1 carriers.

The 10-year risk shot up to 26% for carriers diagnosed with their first breast cancer when they were 40 or younger.

Those with the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene with a triple-negative first tumor had a 10-year risk of 19%.

Discussing the Options
Five to 10% of breast cancers occur in women with a genetic predisposition for the disease, usually due to mutations in either the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes. The lifetime risk of breast cancer increases from 13% to 81% for BRCA1 carriers and 85% for BRCA2 carriers.

Beverly Moy, MD, MPH, a breast cancer specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, says women who are BRCA carriers have two basic options. They can get a double mastectomy to substantially lower their risk, but this surgery doesn’t completely eliminate the risk. Or a woman may choose more intense screening with breast MRI in addition to mammography; if cancer does develop, it is typically picked up at an earlier stage, she says.

“Going forward if you are a carrier [of the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene] and have cancer in one breast, it makes sense to address the risk of cancer in the second breast posed by the study,” Moy tells WebMD.

She says she wouldn’t change practice on the basis of one study.

“But this is a conversation we are already having with our patients. So if a carrier is young or has triple-negative disease, it makes sense to discuss the potential advantage of a [double] mastectomy approach rather than screening,” Moy says.

The research, published online Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, comes just over a month after the same investigators found that the drugs likely do not raise the risk for serious heart problems in children and young adults, based on their study of more than 1.2 million young users.

Millions of children and adults in the U.S. take stimulants such as Adderall, Concerta, Metadate, Methylin, Ritalin, or the non-stimulant Strattera to treat ADHD symptoms such as hyperactivity, impulse control, and trouble focusing.

The new findings should reassure adult patients who take ADHD drugs, but they do not rule out a modest increase in risk associated with their use, says researcher Laurel A. Habel, PhD, a research scientist with the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, Calif.

“With any drug there are potential risks, and these drugs can increase blood pressure,” she tells WebMD. “But if there is an increase in [heart-related] events, our study suggests that it is slight.”

ADHD Drugs and the Heart
Use of stimulant and non-stimulant ADHD drugs has increased rapidly among adults over the past decade, with almost one in three prescriptions now written for adults.

The drugs can increase blood pressure and heart rate. In 2006, reports of health issues led the FDA to commission the largest studies ever conducted examining ADHD drug-related heart risks in children and adults.

In the latest study, researchers followed slightly more than 150,000 adults who had been prescribed stimulant or non-stimulant ADHD medication and about 300,000 adults with no history of ADHD drug use.

The study period lasted about two decades, during which time there were 1,357 heart attacks, 296 sudden deaths from cardiac arrest, and 575 strokes recorded.

Use of ADHD drugs was not associated with an increased risk of any of these three outcomes, even among users with prior heart disease.

Although the studies do not support claims that ADHD drugs significantly increase the risk for life-threatening heart events, the researchers conclude that a modest increase in risk associated with their use cannot be ruled out.

“These studies provide an important piece of the puzzle that we have not had,” says Vanderbilt University professor of pediatrics and preventive medicine William O. Cooper, MD, who led the study in children.
ADHD Drugs: Is EKG Needed?
Cooper tells WebMD that the two studies provide the strongest evidence to date calming fears that stimulant and non-stimulant ADHD drugs raise the risk for heart attack, stroke, and sudden cardiac death.

Concerns that they did led to a 2008 recommendation by the American Heart Association that children and teens have electrocardiograms (EKGs) to check for heart problems before going on stimulant medication for treatment of ADHD.

In an editorial published with the study, ADHD researcher Philip Shaw, MD, PhD, of the National Institutes of Health concluded that there is now little evidence to support this recommendation.

American Heart Association past-President Robert Bonow, MD, says the two studies were well designed and well executed and he agrees that the findings are reassuring.

Bonow is a professor of medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago.

“There has been something of a dark cloud over these drugs with regard to their impact on the heart,” he says. “These findings should put many of these fears to rest, but it is still important to know an individual patient’s risk. Patients with heart disease and those who have a high risk for heart disease need to be monitored if they take these drugs.”