Fenphen diet drugs
As of 1997, the FDA was continuing to receive reports of valvular heart disease in persons who had taken these drugs. He prescribed elixirs of laxatives and purgatives, as well as heat, massage, and exercise. The most significant side effect was a sensation of warmth, frequently with sweating. This remained the mainstay of treatment for well over a thousand years. This disease typically involves the aortic and mitral valves. Rimonabant (Acomplia), a second drug, works via a specific blockade of the endocannabinoid system. In 1996, a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) from the Mayo Clinic discussed clinical findings in 24 people who had taken fen-phen. Overdose, although rare, lead to a rise in body temperature and, ultimately, fatal hyperthermia. Based on its effectiveness for hypothyroidism, thyroid hormone became a popular treatment for obesity in euthyroid people. Adverse effects were less frequent with the combination regimen than with the other active (non-placebo) treatments. Orlistat (Xenical) the most commonly used medication to treat obesity and sibutramine (Meridia) a medication that was recently withdrawn due to cardiovascular side effects. In 1984, researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center reported that they had performed a double-blind, controlled clinical trial comparing phentermine alone, fenfluramine alone, a combination of phentermine and fenfluramine, and placebo, for weight loss in humans. In April 2005, American Lawyer magazine ran a cover story on the wave of fen-phen litigation, reporting that more than 50,000 product liability lawsuits had been filed by alleged fen-phen victims.
The OTC fiber supplements glucomannan and guar gum have been used for the purpose of inhibiting digestion and lowering caloric absorption. The findings indicated that approximately 30 percent of people who had taken the combination up to 24 months had abnormal echocardiograms, even though they had no symptoms. The first described attempts at producing weight loss are those of Soranus of Ephesus, a Greek physician, in the second century AD. Current and potential anti-obesity drugs may operate through one or more of the following mechanisms. Anti-obesity medication or weight loss drugs are all pharmacological agents that reduce or control weight. The action was based on findings from doctors who had evaluated people taking these two drugs with echocardiograms, a procedure that can test the functioning of heart valves. However, the medical officer of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Leo Lutwak, insisted upon a black box warning of pulmonary hypertension risks. It was not until the 1920s and 1930s that new treatments began to appear. For example, Orlistat (also known as Xenical and Alli) blocks fat breakdown and thereby prevents fat absorption. Amphetamines (marketed as Benzedrine) became popular for weight loss during the late 1930s. Appetite suppression- Catecholamines and their derivatives (such as phentermine and other amphetamine -based drugs) are the main tools used for this, although other classes of drugs such as anti-depressants and mood stabilizers have been anecdotally used for appetite suppression (see: bupropion and topiramate ).
