Michael Chamorro Suarez, 32, Flor Parkinson Valla, 33, and, from left to right, Giulia,1, Johan 7, Jamie 5 and his twin sister Sofia, 5, photographed in the living room of their house in Cahuita, Costa Rica. Flor graduated in Italy with a thesis on the migration of Italians to Costa Rica. She now runs a bakery in the village while her husband has one of the few restaurants of the small town of Cahuita. Their eldest son, Johan has been diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed Risperdal that is an antipsychotic medicine (visible first medicine on the top left). Risperdal is used to treat schizophrenia in adults and children who are at least 13 years old. Risperdal is also used to treat symptoms of irritability in autistic children who are 5 to 16 years old. Johan’s parents have bough the medicine but for the moment have not given it to him fearing it might have negative consequences bigger then the benefit.

Ingrida Pauleske, 85, lives in the small village of Pelči in Latvia. She is a retired schoolteacher and now has a vegetable garden where she grows cucumbers and other vegetables that she pickles for the winter. She lives in a small apartment in a soviet style block. Her health is good and the medicines she has in her home or generally left overs from passing illnesses she has had.

Arnaud Brunel and his wife Candelita in their house in Lausanne, Switzerland. Arnaud is businessman and CEO of Tectona. He is also an avid collector of photography and supporter of various photographic institutions. In the photo some of the works he owns are visible, including by Richard Avedon, Andres Serrano and Vik Muniz.

Noorjaha Sagri, 56, her husband Abbas Ali Sagri, 67, and, from left to right, their children Faisal, 24, Heena, 17 and Rafiq, 22. They live in a one room flat in the Dharavi slum of Mumbai, India. At night they pull out mattress and all sleep in one room. The parents do not work, while the children do sporadically and are the only source of income for the family. Abbas, the father, has suffered a stroke so most of the medicines visible are for his use.

Wholl-Lima Balthazan, 56, her mother Silemoieux Charikable, 76, and her son Lozèma Astrel, 20, in their house, Port au Prince, Haiti. Wholl-Lima works as a secretary for a Haitian cultural organization called Fokal. She uses traditional Haitian medicine to cure herself and her loved ones. It is mainly leafs that can be found in local markets or provided by a “Medsen Fey”, a leaf doctor.

Ieva Luste, 34, in her modern apartment in downtown Riga, Latvia. She works for the Latvian government in the public relations office. She is divorced and has a 10-year-old son that lives with her.

Yasumasa, 70, and his wife Nobuko, 66, in their bedroom. They live in Honatsugi district of Tokyo, Japan. They have two sons that come and visit with their families on the weekends. They are both retired. Yasumasa has a heart condition for which he takes multiple daily medicines that are ready in the small transparent sachets visible in the photo. Nobuko takes calcium against osteoporosis and aspirin for her heart.

Marco Segato, 47, Vittoria Ruzzi, 30, Gherardo, 4 and Pietro, 1, are Italians but live in a high-end condo in Miami, USA. Marco is the agent for luxury yachts built in Italy while Vittoria is an architect. They travel, often to exotic destinations, both for pleasure and for work. Many of the medicines they have in their house come from Italy where, differently then in the USA, there is a single payer health care system.

Arunas Andriejauskas (53) and his wife Aliona Andriejauskaite (52) in their home in Preila, Lithuania. Arunas is an engineer and Aliona teaches science. They deeply believe in the curative powers of nature and do not have or use and industrial pharmaceuticals. Instead they produce their own remedies both gleaning the woods around their house for herbs, mushrooms and berries and harvesting from their vegetable garden and their honey production. They have a large selection of essential oils that have specific applications for all different ailments.

Isidro Flores Gonzales, 48, and his son Adrian Flores Mendoza, 25, in their house in Xochimilco one of the boroughs of Mexico City, Mexico. Isidro is a biologist and founder of the conservation group Santuario del Ajolote that tries to protect the Axolotl, a rare kind of salamander that lives in the nearby lakes.

Ilio Gezimeil, 40, his wife Sonia-Sazian Joseph, 37, and their children Donalson, 11, Wisline, 11 and Mirna Matramia, 2, in the neighborhood of Carrefour Feuille in Port au Prince, Haiti. Ilio, better know as Wilson, is a moto-taxi driver. He actually is a mason but he cannot find work or when he finds it does not get paid so prefers to work as a moto-taxi to sustain his family. They have very few medicines at home, including a large spectrum antibiotic, a shampoo against parasites and a cough syrup. Ilio would like his wife to take birth control pills because he does not earn enough to sustain his 4 children and he does not want more. But Sonia-Sazian refuses because the pastor in the protestant church she is part of affirms it is against the will of God.

Piero Galanti, 50, and his wife Katuscia Gazza, 43, are Italians vacationing in Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica. Katuscia is a nurse and Piero works as a PR for discotheques. They are self-declared hypochondriacs and their travel pharmacy has medications for numerous ailments. It includes antibiotic creams, medication for fungal infections and for rheumatoid arthritis.

Nicole, 25, her mother Sonia 60 and her grandmother 85, in the apartment they share with Toto, the dog, in Los Martires neighborhood of Bogota, Colombia. Nicole is aspiring to become a “SuicideGirl”. SuicideGirls are members of an online community that is also a modeling agency for girls that have a lot of tattoos, piercing and a general pin-up style. In the meantime she posts online videos of her singing famous songs pop in playback.

Henri Caillet, 92, getting some exercise in his home in Bretigny, Switzerland. Henri was a chief responsible in a factory in the German part of Switzerland and a very keen player of Pétanque. He is in very good health and does not have many medicines in his home. The only one he regularly uses is syrup for catarrh since he used to smoke heavily.

Lara Reaves, 36 - Aliso Viejo, California U.S.A. Lara was born in El Toro, California, 36 years ago. When she was 14th, she started to have eating disorders problems. She first became bulimic and then anorexic. She used a lot of medicines in the past to cure her diseases. “I had to take anti depressants, pills for anxiety, and also some pills against bipolarism” she says. After few years of cures she stopped having these problems and so she decided to start helping anorexic and bulimich people. Now she works for “Rebecca Foundation”, a foundations that helps people with eating disorders. She still uses a medicines but not anymore for eating disorders.

Paola Agnelli, 62, and Roberto Galimberti, 68, with their cat Nina in their apartment in Castiglion Fiorentino, Italy. Paola used to be a schoolteacher and Roberto a surveyor. They are both retired. Roberto suffers of a week heart and for this takes Enalapril and Xarelto pills every day while Paola has had three operations to remove cancers and has to take Femara (an antitumor) daily and twice a month Dibase, to contrast the negative effects of the antitumor drug.

Jean Toussaint, 28, is a policeman in the National Police Force of Haiti. He has built the house where he’s photographed in the suburbs of the city of Jacmel, Haiti. Like many Haitians he does not own many medicines and usually buys the single pills from street vendors if he needs them. He has here some cough syrup and some Paracetamol.

Aurelie Chauffert-Yvart and her husband Alexis Chauffert-Yvart, both 33, in their apartment in Paris. Aurelie works in a publishing house and Alexis has launched a start-up in the real estate market. Like most French, they have an abundance of medicines in their house and, while going trough them, realized just how many. They have all kinds of drugs, from antivirals to antidepressants, from painkillers to antibiotics.

Becket Cudmore, 290 - Irvine, California Becket was born in Washington State. When he was a child he was really skinny. He had been sexually abused at the age of 7. After that, he has been adopted. When he was 10 he started to have eating disorders. He started to eat compuslively and he got a lot of weight in short time. At the age of 15th he was really big. “One day I realized that I had a problem and that I was not recognizing myself anymore. I felt into a big depression and at that point I decided to start to cure myself”, he sais. Now he’s taking medicines for his depression and for his eating disorders.

Mohammed, 34, in his house in Marsa Alam in Egypt. Mohammed works in a pharmacy that is inside The Three Corners, a Belgian beach resort that caters mainly to North Europeans. The products that are most sold in the pharmacy are Viagra and suntan lotion. His personal pharmacy is instead composed by Egyptian generics that are much cheaper then the western versions.

David Gueta, 60, and his wife Judith Eljsbertse, 58, in their house in Jerusalem, Israel. They met when Judith, who is Dutch, came, at the age of 19, to work in a Kibbutz in Israel. Their only daughter is studying abroad. They are both retired and Judith suffers of diabetes that constrains her to a wheelchair most of the time. Some of the medicines in the photo are for her condition.

Susan Fisher, 35, is a yoga teacher and has a popular yoga studio just under her apartment in a trendy area of Zurich, Switzerland. She does not use allopathic medicines but only homeopathic remedies. She also uses Ayahuasca wine that can be seen in the red jar at the center of the photo. Ayahuasca is a traditional brew of leafs and roots consumed as a spiritual medicine in ceremonies among the Indigenous peoples of the Amazon basin. Its effects include hallucinations, spiritual revelations and vomiting, considered to be an essential part of the experience, as it represents the release of negative energy and emotions. It has become increasingly popular amongst westerns that assume it often under the control of shaman.

Estefania Alvarez De Gonzalez, 89 lives in the Santa Isabel neighborhood of Bogota, Colombia. She lives with one of her son’s who is in his 60’s and her dog. She does regularly take pills for various conditions linked to her age, but in generally in good health.

Odette Martelly, 57, Jean Michel, 9, and Ronald, 5, in her house in Ti Mouillage, Haiti. Odette house, really a shack, is a few meters from the beach. She works as a maid in the secondary houses of richer Haitians that come to the Ti Mouillage beach for vacation. Odette does not even have one single pill in her house. Like many Haitians she usually buys the strictly necessary number of pills from a street vendor, if she needs them and if she can afford them at the time.

Remo Ballardini, 65, in his house in Riva del Garda, Italy. Remo is the librarian of the Museo Alto Garda, a museum that dedicated to the Garda Lake. He is a heavy smoker and his home pharmacy includes cough syrup and an unused lotion against hair loss.

Ana Cristina,33, Leonardo de Andrade Bernardo, 24, and their children Raphaelia, 12, e Guilleme, 3. They are photographed in their tiny apartment in the Vidigal favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The entire apartment is visible in the photo. At night they pull out another mattress from underneath the lower bed. Ana works as a cleaning lady and Leonardo as a plumber.

Charles Frôté, 28, is a Swiss photographer and artist living in Vevey, Switzerland. He has recently graduated with full marks from the Vevey School of Photography. He suffers from a mysterious disease that causes him to lose wait even if his intake is very high. The doctors he has consulted have not found a cause or a cure for his ailment. He keeps in his apartment a large glass jug that contains all the pills that have been left over from the numerous cures he has been prescribed.

George, 63, in the shack he lives in on the beach of Beaoduc in the south of France. Beaoduc is a very remote location at the tip of the national park of Camargue. Here a tiny village of shacks is inhabited by an eccentric group of people that escape society. But most come for the summer while George lives here year round. He is a fisherman, and the only one operating for miles of cost. He does not own medicines, exception made for the ones he uses to control his diabetes.