Word: weightness
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Finally, the development of Prozac led to a number of surprises--the discovery that it was good for obsessive-compulsive disorder, for example, as well as for panic disorder and social phobias. Clinicians also noticed that Prozac patients tended to lose weight, an intriguing finding, considering how many Americans are obese. But the weight loss was transitory, so Lilly scientists went back into the lab to see if they could reformulate Prozac as an effective obesity drug...
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...
...companies that produced, tested and zealously promoted the pills. 3. The doctors and diet clinics that eagerly dispensed them, even to patients for whom they were never intended. 4. Uncritical media that ballyhooed the pills as "miracle" drugs and "magic bullets" in the war against fat. 5. A fanatically weight-conscious public so eager to shed pounds that it demanded the pills at any cost...
Though I was pretty sure I didn't need it, I went home with a prescription for amitriptiline, a tricyclic antidepressant of the pre-Prozac age. The crinkly pamphlet that came with the pills mentioned some side effects: weight gain, dry mouth, sluggishness. It also informed me that it might take weeks for the drug to relieve my symptoms. I filled a glass of water and downed my pills, and within an hour, my mouth was dry as sand. Because all this happened seven years ago, before depression and its chemical basis were staple topics on the morning shows...
Dominating the page was the man who, with atomic energy and electric-blue eyes that alternately charmed and haunted, had dominated every conversation he'd ever had. Einhorn wasn't on a weight-loss program back then. Cross a bear with a man, take away all grooming implements and you get Ira, who considered himself too mythic to bathe regularly or use his given name. Einhorn means "one horn," so he called himself the Unicorn. When it wasn't fair maidens he was after, it was the company of nags like Rubin, Hoffman and Allen Ginsberg. He ingested enough drugs...