Storing medical ailments in a database I am trying to find the best method to store medical ailments , like Diabetes, Hypertension, Cancer etc in a 
database.

My form will list over 200 ailments and the user will check those that affect him. I could serialize those
selected and then store it in a database but I want to be able to use the information at a later stage.
For example I want to know what ailments are selected with Diabetes and Hypertension.
Does this mean I will have to create a field for each ailment in my database ?

I am confused here.

I would appreciate any assistance.

Thanks
Kimmy
No need to serialize. A relational database (such as MySQL) is intended to store one fact per row. This is the proper way to do it.

Have an Ailments table. It will have 200 rows - one per ailment. This will be used to populate the user's check list.

On save, write each checked ailment to a UserAilment table. It will consist of a foreign key to the user table and a foreign key to Ailments.