Susan Craig’s brother Roger died of a pulmonary embolism in 2007, at age 38. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder in high school, he had been on antipsychotic drugs for years. At the time of his death, he was carrying 280 pounds on his 6-foot-4-inch frame.
Craig, a public relations specialist who works at Columbia University in New York City, knew that Roger’s medications could cause weight gain. But she had never been told that the drugs he was taking might be harming his heart.
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The FDA today announced that it will require makers of epilepsy drugs to add a warning about increased risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors to the products’ prescribing information or labeling.
The warning — which won’t be a “black box” warning — applies to all antiepileptic medications, including those used to treat psychiatric disorders, migraines, and other conditions, as well as epilepsy.
GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s (GSK.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) widely prescribed drug Advair is safe enough for treating asthma but two lesser-used medicines are too risky, a U.S. advisory panel ruled on Thursday.
Evidence of asthma-related deaths and serious complications led the panel of experts to warn against continued use of Glaxo’s Serevent and Novartis AG’s (NOVN.VX: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) Foradil for adults, adolescents and children with asthma.
The FDA today ordered a “black box” warning, the FDA’s sternest warning, for the prescription oral sodium phosphate products Visicol and OsmoPrep, which are used to cleanse the bowel before a colonoscopy and other medical procedures.
The warning pertains to the risk of acute phosphate nephropathy, which is a type of acute kidney injury.
The FDA also recommends that consumers not use over-the-counter oral sodium phosphate products, such as Fleet Phospho-soda, for bowel cleansing.
The human brain is a truly amazing organ. Roughly the size of a small head of cauliflower, the brain contains all our thoughts, actions, emotions, perceptions, desires and dreams. Although housed inside the skull for protection, the brain is extremely vulnerable to damage and degeneration from poor nutrition, lack of oxygen, toxic overload and chemical deposits, including drugs. Both smoking and drinking has been shown to affect the brain, damaging cells and synapses (neural connections) and high alcohol consumption is known to result in shrinking of the brain and cognitive deficit. However, researchers have discovered that even modest amounts of alcohol have the same negative effect.
Regular use of common painkillers such as aspirin and ibuprofen reduces the risk of breast cancer, according to an international study.
The research, which looked at information from 2.7 million women, was published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Aspirin cut the risk by 13%, while ibuprofen lowered it by a fifth.
However, experts warned long-term use of painkillers can have serious side-effects.
BEIJING – Premier Wen Jiabao promised Saturday to improve Chinese food safety, seeking to tamp down public anxiety in the widening scandal over tainted milk that has sickened more than 50,000 children.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in the port of Tianjin, Wen did not announce new initiatives but he said the government would work to instill business ethics in light of the milk contamination and a string of earlier product safety disasters.
LONDON (Reuters) – Results of a clinical study to be presented next month show the blockbuster inhaled lung drug Spiriva, marketed by Pfizer and Boehringer Ingelheim, actually cuts heart risk, researchers said on Wednesday.
The finding contradicts the conclusion of a pooled analysis from past studies published on Tuesday which found Spiriva raised the risk of heart attack, stroke and death from heart disease.
The results from the new four-year clinical trial, known as Uplift and involving nearly 6,000 patients, showed no such increase.
LONDON – COMMON antidepressant drugs may reduce some men’s fertility by damaging the DNA in their sperm, according to scientists.
A study of 35 healthy men given paroxetine – sold as Paxil or Seroxat by GlaxoSmithKline – found that, on average, the proportion of sperm cells with fragmented DNA rose from 13.8 per cent before treatment to 30.3 per cent after just four weeks.
Similar levels of sperm DNA damage have been linked to problems with embryo viability in couples trying to have children.
Energy drinks have been popular for years, and the market keeps expanding. Some people drink them like they would soda — during breakfast, lunch, dinner and as snacks. But there is such a thing as too much energy. A study published today in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence delivers a stern warning about the possibility of caffeine intoxication from energy drinks.
“The caffeine content of energy drinks varies over a 10-fold range, with some containing the equivalent of 14 cans of Coca-Cola, yet the caffeine amounts are unlabeled and few include warnings about potential health risks of caffeine intoxication,” said one of the study’s authors, Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions.
