Being informed

There’s emerging evidence that ordinary medications - from paracetamol to antihistamines, statins, asthma medications, and antidepressants - can change our brains. They can make us impulsive, angry, or restless, and even alter aspects of our personalities.

In most people, changes fr...

Paracetamol blunts physical pain by reducing activity in certain brain areas, such as the insular cortex, which plays an important role in our emotions. Paracetamol can blunt our social pain too.

Recent research has revealed that our brain's pain centers also share their home with e...

• People with lower cholesterol levels are more likely to die violent deaths.
• If you put primates on a low-cholesterol diet, they become more aggressive. Lowering animals’ cholesterol seems to affect their levels of serotonin. Even fruit flies start fighting if you interfere with thei...

• The US buys an equivalent of 298 paracetamol tablets per person every year.
• The average American consumes $1,200 worth of prescription medications over the same period.
• In the UK, one in 10 people over the age of 65 takes eight medications every week.

• Asthma medications are thought to bring on ADHD symptoms by altering levels of serotonin or inflammatory chemicals, which are thought to be involved in the development of both conditions.
• People on antidepressants do feel less depressed, but they also begin not to care abou...