I'm Joe Gradyton and I'm Terry Grady. Welcome to this podcast of the People's Pharmacy.

You can find previous podcasts and more information on a range of health topics at

People's Pharmacy.com.

Last year, Americans spent more than $40 billion on over-the-counter medications house safe for these drugs. This is the People's Pharmacy with Terry and Joe Grayden. Many of our most popular OTC medicines were once available only by prescription.

Do brands like Motrin and Nexium lose their side effects when they become

available without a prescription? Some brands like Bear Asperin and

Peptobismal are household names. Could this familiarity be dangerous?

People rarely read instructions on OTC packaging. How could this get them into trouble?

Coming up on the People's Pharmacy, the hazards of overdosing on OTC medications. In the People's Pharmacy Health Headlines, a meta-analysis in the annals of internal medicine reports that low testosterone levels are associated with a shorter lifespan.

The investigators reviewed 11 studies involving more than 24,000 men.

When testosterone levels drop below 213, there was a higher rate of all cause mortality.

If levels fell below 153, there was also an increased risk of cardiovascular death.

When and androgen levels fall, men often experience loss of muscle, fatigue, and depression.

It's not clear from this research whether

testosterone supplementation would be helpful or harmful.

The Mediterranean diet is renowned for its benefits on heart health. Now Spanish

researchers have studied the benefits for weight loss and gut

microbiota. They recruited 400 volunteers between 55 and 75 years old who had participated in the original

Pready Med trial.

The participants were evenly divided between a group that followed an unrestricted Mediterranean-style diet,

and a group that followed a low-calary Mediterranean diet and exercised.

The researchers collected blood and stool for analysis at the start of the study and after a year of intervention.

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