Word: tagamet
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...HEARTBURN HEAVEN These days there are more ways to treat heartburn than to get it. Two widely prescribed anti-ulcer drugs--Pepcid and Tagamet--were approved by the fda as over-the-counter remedies. A third drug, called Zantac, will become available...
...firms in the fray or about to enter it are only too aware that their new heartburn drugs are bound to cannibalize their traditional antacid products. In touting Tagamet HB, for example, SmithKline has to avoid invidious comparisons with Tums, its antacid moneymaker, while J&J/Merck must tiptoe around any comparisons between Pepcid AC and its antacid, the much advertised Mylanta. Meanwhile, Switzerland's Ciba-Geigy has other worries. Though it has no acid blocker available that could bite into sales of Maalox, its bread-and-butter antacid, its competitors' new drugs almost certainly will...
Though hurt by the onslaught of acid blockers, the lower-priced and faster-acting antacids will almost certainly maintain a respectable market share. Tums, for example, costs less than 3¢ a tablet. That compares with more than 40¢ for a one-a-day Pepcid AC tablet or a Tagamet HB two-tablet dose, although both products currently offer substantial rebates. Still, booming sales of the new acid blockers seem to show that heartburn sufferers are not troubled by sticker shock. At a Duane Reade drugstore in Manhattan, Darlene Jackson, 35, picked up a box of Tagamet HB and noted...
What separates the new over-the-counter medications from the old solutions? Antacids, which consist largely of chemical compounds called bases, neutralize the wayward acid, but as acid continues to migrate upward from the stomach, heartburn can return in only a few hours. Acid blockers like Pepcid and Tagamet, on the other hand, go to the root of the problem by suppressing the production of acid in cells lining the interior of the stomach without interfering with normal digestion. These cells normally produce acid when a form of histamine called H2 "docks" with receptors in the cell walls, much like...
...pills thinking they will relieve bleeding that can occur with high doses of rheumatoid-arthritis drugs like ibuprofen. While neither H2 antagonists nor antacids cause bleeding, they may keep those with ulcers from recognizing the need to seek help. H2 blockers still have fewer side effects than antacids. (Tagamet may interfere with the body's ability to metabolize certain drugs, but the incidence, say researchers, is not significant.) Meanwhile, calcium-based antacids like Tums and Rolaids can occasionally contribute to kidney stones, and aluminum- and magnesium-based ones like Mylanta and Maalox can sometimes be dangerous for people with kidney...