Word: neurologists
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Their efforts failed, but Richard Wurtman, an M.I.T. neurologist and Lilly consultant, took a different approach. Instead of using Prozac as a starting point, he turned to fenfluramine, a European weight-loss drug. Because fenfluramine acts on both serotonin and dopamine, it has the unfortunate side effect of putting its users to sleep. That is why doctors came up with fen/phen; the "phen" (phentermine) is an amphetamine-like drug that wakes the patient up again and boosts the metabolism to burn calories faster. Wurtman separated fenfluramine into its two component chemicals, levofenfluramine and dexfenfluramine. The latter has revealed itself...
...summer was a busy one for the neurologist, who said that reacquainting himself with the Boston medical community after years in California was like "coming home in many ways...
...Allen and others, however, is that--if the testimonials in Weil's books are to be believed--many people who try these treatments do get better. A mainstream gynecologist may not be able to explain why raspberry and nettles could help cure endometriosis, and a traditional neurologist may be stumped at how breathing exercises could dramatically relieve the symptoms of Parkinson's disease. But the fact remains that in a number of cases these treatments appear to work. For many in mainstream medicine, of course, such a cause-and-effect disconnect sounds like nothing more than an elaborate placebo effect...
...after withdrawal--is greatest in the prefrontal cortex, a dopamine-rich area of the brain that controls impulsive and irrational behavior. Addicts, in fact, display many of the symptoms shown by patients who have suffered strokes or injuries to the prefrontal cortex. Damage to this region, University of Iowa neurologist Antonio Damasio and his colleagues have demonstrated, destroys the emotional compass that controls behaviors the patient knows are unacceptable...
...these lesions, they are finding evidence that supports both camps. Families that carry a defective version of a gene involved in making beta amyloid, it is well established, have high rates of Alzheimer's, which lends weight to the beta amyloid theory. But many more people, observes Duke University neurologist Dr. Allen Roses, carry an Alzheimer's-susceptibility gene known as Apo-E4, which produces a protein that appears to affect tau. Individuals who carry two copies of this gene, Roses has shown, have an elevated risk of developing Alzheimer's before age 70. And if they suffer a stroke...