Hi, I'm Joe Graydon.

I'm Terry Graydon.

Welcome to this podcast of the People's Pharmacy, where we bring you the stories behind the health headlines.

This podcast is brought to you by Redux Industries, makers of utterly smooth body cream.

800-345-7339 on the web at utter cream.com.

Staten drugs to lower cholesterol are a mainstay of preventing and treating heart disease.

What are the benefits and risks of these medications?

This is the People's Pharmacy with Terry and Joe Graydon.

Guidelines from the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology

recommend statin drugs for nearly all older people and lots of younger ones.

Have you been prescribed a drug like Symbastatin or a Torvastatin?

The balance between the benefits and risks of statins is controversial.

Many people who start on the statin report side effects,

such as muscle pain. When do the problems overpower the advantages? Coming up on the people's

pharmacy, two very different perspectives on the truth about statins and heart disease. First, this news.

In the people's pharmacy health headlines, taking antibiotics for just a few days might work

just as well as taking them for a week or two, at least for some cases of pneumonia.

For years, physicians commonly prescribed antibiotics for a week to 10 days.

Patients were warned that if they stopped prematurely, the infection could return with a vengeance.

A new study in Gem internal medicine compared two regiments. Patients hospitalized with pneumonia

took the antibiotic they were prescribed for at least

five days. Those in the study group discontinued the drug after day five if they no longer had

...