Robert Gold's book, Are Your Meds Making You Sick?: Just what Santa's doctor ordered

In this day and age, Santa's doctor would have him taking a statin for his cholesterol, and an ACE inhibitor or calcium channel blocker for the high blood pressure caused by the tension of meeting all those urgent customer demands. Luckily, the interactive effects, and potential adverse reactions to those and many other drugs, are discussed in Robert Steven Gold's new book, Are Your Meds Making You Sick?: A pharmacist's guide to avoiding dangerous drug interactions, reactions and side effects.

Gold, a hospital pharmacist and instructor of clinical pharmacy at Purdue University, lists 16 rules of safe medication use. In each of 30 case studies, he describes a patient, his or her symptoms, the suspect meds, a summary, the mystery to be addressed, the drug "culprit" and "accomplice," the solution, the odds that you'll encounter a problem, and advice for those taking that medication. The case studies illustrate the usefulness of the rules.

Professional patient advocates should buy this book so they can advise patients who take any of the dozens of drugs that Gold describes.

Gold's book is available from the publisher, Hunter House. Thanks to Sean Harvey for connecting us and making available a copy of the book.