Word: compounded
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...drug that's new only in a sense. In fact, Redux is essentially just a refined version of a compound called fenfluramine, which is usually taken along with another drug, phentermine, in a combination known popularly as fen/phen. Like fenfluramine, Redux stimulates the production and availability of the neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain. Serotonin is responsible for, among other things, the physical and emotional sense of being satisfied, of having had enough. Serotonin also triggers a more general feeling of well-being (antidepressants like Prozac work on the serotonin system as well); some experts think the mood-elevating effect...
This marks a striking change in attitude. The idea of using drugs to treat excess weight was anathema 20 years ago, when M.I.T. neurologist Dr. Richard Wurtman first learned about the compound fenfluramine. At the time, the term diet pill was synonymous with amphetamines, and conjured up an image of sleazy feel-good doctors getting patients hooked on speed. Pharmaceutical companies wanted nothing to do with the weight-loss business...
DHEA, by comparison, is the modern equivalent of a patent medicine--an interesting compound being sold as a cure-all on the basis of the flimsiest scientific evidence. Like human-growth hormone and melatonin, two other drugs being promoted as antiaging compounds, DHEA is a medically active chemical with real value that has piqued the interest of mainstream scientists. But the claims that surround DHEA--that it can restore sexual vigor, prevent cancer and heart disease, and add decades to your life--run far ahead of the science...
...gene defect results in a protein that does not function, says Myriad's Skolnick, "you would try to replace that function by introducing a correct version of the protein into the body. Or you would try to mimic the function of the missing protein with a synthetic compound...
Virtually all anticancer drugs interfere with cell division in some fashion. Cyclophosphamide, the compound that finally banished Dustin Fagan's cancer, belongs to a broad class of drugs that damage the DNA molecule by plastering it with sticky cross-links, thus triggering the suicide sequence. By contrast, the taxoids--including taxol, the compound isolated from the bark of the yew tree that was approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a weapon against ovarian cancer in 1992--cause the same suicidal result by deactivating a molecular machine that, just before cell division, separates the DNA in each chromosome into...