This new year, you may not be the only one who needs a fresh start. Just like the refrigerator, your medicine cabinet needs to be cleaned out every once in a while.  It's not to just get rid of clutter; it's to keep you healthy. 

When it comes to de-cluttering your medicine cabinet, there's one important thing you should do, if you haven't already: move your medications out of the bathroom. A year's worth of showers and baths create humidity that can cause drugs to lose their potency. If you don't know what some of your prescriptions are for, a quick call to your pharmacist can fix that. And toss anything that's expired because it is most likely less effective. 

“Once things go into the medicine cabinet, it becomes a black hole. Everything goes in, but nothing ever comes out. So this is a good time of year, make your resolution, it's to actually go and look to find out what's in there,” Bill Ladwig of Lewis Drug said. 

It's also a good idea to go through your over-the-counter medications every so often to make sure certain drugs don't get in the wrong hands or to decrease the risk of taking the wrong pill.