The label on a bottle of pills says “Take one half pill daily.” A natural way to proceed is as follows: Every day, remove a pill from the bottle at random. If it is a whole pill, break it in half, take one half, and return the other half to the bottle; if it is a half pill, take it. We analyze the history of such a pill bottle.

OBJECTIVES Single-pill combination therapy (amlodipine/atorvastatin) might be more effective than double-pill therapy (amlodipine+atorvastatin) in patients with diabetes and concomitant hypertension requiring statin therapy. We compared the cost-effectiveness of a single-pill with that of double-pill for control of low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels, with the ultimate goal of ca...

OBJECTIVES To compare bleeding patterns for 12 months continuous use of a contraceptive ring [contraceptive vaginal ring (CVR)] and pill [combined oral contraceptive (COC)] on a menstrually signaled regimen and the effectiveness of 4 days "treatment withdrawal" to stop bleeding. STUDY DESIGN Women, 66 to each group, were randomized to continuous use of a CVR (15 mcg ethinyl estradiol/150 mcg ...

Harm reduction has become the focus of public health initiatives and therapeutic intervention in the management of dependent drug use over the last 20 years. The last decade has seen such approaches being extended to recreational drug use. Most harm reduction initiatives have aimed to inform users about risks and ways of minimizing risk. The concept of providing illicit drug users with quality ...

Family planning programs have traditionally concentrated on women. This study aimed to determine men's knowledge of contraceptive methods in a rural community in Bahia State, Brazil. Mean age of interviewees was 40.0 (+/-17.6) years. Avoiding unwanted pregnancy was reported as a responsibility of the couple by 39.7% of the male interviewees (n = 71) and as the man's responsibility by 26.8% (n =...

This article analyzes knowledge and use of contraceptive methods in women ages 10 to 49 years residing in the southern region of the city of São Paulo in 1992. A total of 1,157 childbearing-age women were studied, focusing on variables that might define them as to: knowledge in the use of contraceptive methods and reasons for choosing a given method. We observed that 86% of the women referred k...

OBJECTIVES To establish if advice concerning risks of pregnancy when taking oral contraceptive pill and antibiotics is being offered. METHOD A retrospective audit of notes of 100 female patients aged 15-39 who were prescribed antibiotics. RESULTS Documentation of use of contraception was noted in 3% of patients. Advice concerning risks and further precautions was noted in this 3% but not in...

Luc Bovens, in his 2006 article, argues that it can be shown that the 'rhythm' method of birth control results in a larger number of embryonic deaths than the IUD, the morning after pill or the combination oral contraceptive pill, just so long as one accepts his three 'plausible' assumptions. In this brief response I will argue that Boven's third assumption is not plausible when one takes into ...

Objective: To explore the possible mechanism of Erzhi Pill in treatment breast cancer based on network pharmacology. Methods: Through systematic pharmacology database and analysis platform Traditional Chinese medicine (TCMSP) literature review, candidate active ingredients corresponding targets were retrieved collected. The UniProt Human Genome Annotation Database (Genecards) used to compare re...