Word: phen
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...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 to be a powerful weight-loss medication. He patented the drug for M.I.T., founded...
...reason for all the retrenchment: potentially lethal side effects. Over the summer, the FDA revealed that 82 patients had developed defects in their heart valves while on fen-phen, and that seven patients had come down with the same condition on Redux (which is a chemical cousin of fenfluramine, the "fen" in fen-phen...
...that weren't bad enough, physicians reported that a woman who had been taking fen-phen for less than a month died of primary pulmonary hypertension, a sometimes fatal lung condition already associated with Redux. And an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association last month confirmed earlier reports that both fen-phen and Redux can cause brain damage in lab animals...
These findings led the New England Journal to publish an editorial admonishing doctors to prescribe the drugs only for patients with severe obesity. Meanwhile, FDA asked drugmakers to put more explicit warnings on fen-phen and Redux labels. Since mid-July, prescriptions for fen-phen have dropped 56%, and those for Redux 36%, according to IMS America, a pharmaceutical-market research firm...
...into a smaller bathing suit. FDA approved Redux with just such a caveat, and when limited to these patients, the drugs may still make sense--despite the risks--because morbid obesity carries its own dangers, including heart disease, diabetes and stroke. Too often, however, Redux and fen-phen were peddled to all comers, almost like candy. The current backlash, says Levine, is a "roller coaster that never should have happened...