I have a total love/hate relationship with medicine. Although I value science and medicine, quite often I can't stand the affects they have on me. I simply can't stand to be drowsy, foggy or affected in any way. Prescriptions are great if they fix what's wrong with you, but all of the side effects are for the birds. I suppose if we all took each drug correctly, we may have less. So, I was particularly intrigued when Women's Health posted a study regarding drug labels.

According to a survey in the Annals of Internal Medicine, almost half of the participants misunderstood drug warning labels, and most ignored the directions altogether. This gallery provides some of the most common instructions you'll find on those little stickers slapped on each bottle and what they really mean.

The world is filling up with people, and that means competition in all kinds of different areas of our lives. But maybe one of the most noticeable, and the most stressful, is the competition that we face in our careers while we're at work. If you're not always on the top of your game and blowing everybody away with your amazing abilities then there's somebody right behind you who ready, willing, and waiting to do just that.

So how do you deal with the pressure? Unfortunately a growing number of working people are looking to boost brain power, productivity, and alertness in all the wrong ways. Sports (most recently baseball) have always struggled with keeping drugs and other unnatural means of performance enhancement out of the picture, but now it seems the trend is moving into the working class. People are doping up in the hopes of doing better at their jobs.

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While it's mostly an issue for older adults, mixing medications and taking too many different types at one time is a concern for everyone. Even if you're in close contact with your doctor there is still a significant risk to your health if you're on more than a couple different meds -- drugs are getting so complicated these days human error is inevitable when it comes to remembering, and predicting, side-effects and drug interactions.

How many meds are you or your loved ones currently taking? Are you aware of and watchful of potential side-effects and are you absolutely sure you need them all? When it comes to your health you are your own best ally, so educate yourself and be involved.

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There are lots of pill boxes and pill management systems out there, but this one now has the FDA's stamp of approval. Called EMMA (Electronic Medication Management System), it's a gadget about the size of a breadbox that's designed for older patients and those with complicated dosing schedules. It stores the medications, alerts when it's time to take them, and releases the correct pills into a tray when activated by the patient at the right time. Dosages and times can be accessed and adjusted online by the doctor, pharmacist, or other health care professional.

Neat!

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Science is almost equally as dangerous as it is helpful. Prescription medications, for example, all too often turn out to have deadly side-effects that are seemingly unrelated at all to what they were originally intended to do.

But until we develop other methods, a big part of the learning curve for scientists is watching what happens once a new drug has been approved for general human use. There's just no way they can reproduce that kind of research in a lab setting, and they learn new things about old drugs all the time.

Medications for heartburn, blood pressure, breast cancer, and osteoporosis all have risks that you may not be aware of -- like an increased chance for breaking a hip or developing diabetes. Read this article for the latest on these 4 common prescriptions, and consider talking with your doctor about any new findings on other meds you may be taking.

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You can save a lot of money by switching to generic medications, right? If you have insurance, then yes. But if you're one of the many Americans who don't have adequate prescription coverage (or no health coverage at all) then generics may cost you more than you expect.

The Wall Street Journal took a closer look at this issue and found that generic medication costs "can vary wildly and may not be nearly as cheap as expected." I was surprised to read that pharmacies like Walgreens and CVS started dropping certain prescription prices by $40 or more once questioned about seemingly high prices.

Ugh, money and health care is really starting to give me a headache.

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