Health information and medication administration can be difficult to understand and comply with. The number one cause of mortality in adults is cardiovascular disease. For prevention of this disease,  monitoring blood pressure and cholesterol levels play an important role. Medication is often times required to regulate the disease. With a diagnosis of hypertension (high blood pressure) and/or hyperlipidemia (high cholesterol), frequent dosage and medication changes are often made to assure therapeutic levels are maintained and cardiovascular risks are lessened. Somewhere amongst the changes and diagnosis, information is misunderstood or brushed off as unimportant. This results in wrongfully administered medications or all together stopping the medication. A recent issue of American Family Physician, puts this into perspective. They relay the message that only 50% of Americans take their medication as directed. It is unclear whether it is from a lack of understanding as to why they are taking a medication, completely misunderstanding their medicine’s administration and dosing, or simply being noncompliant. The real issue here is that just half of the Americans taking medications are taking them as prescribed. Taking all medications as directed and asking questions as needed, will help reduce the risk of greater health care issues.