Can We Medicate Our Way Out of the Obesity Epidemic?.
No.
Pharma
Statins: The Good, the Bad, and the Unknown
JAMA – Treating Prescription Opioid Dependence
JAMA Network | JAMA | Treating Prescription Opioid Dependence.
Conclusions and Relevance This study represents a rigorous experimental evaluation of outpatient buprenorphine stabilization, brief taper, and naltrexone maintenance for treatment of PO dependence. Results suggest that a meaningful subset of PO-dependent outpatients may respond positively to a 4-week
Naltrexone maintenance? I bet they’ll lost weight too.
Deaths From Narcotic Painkillers Quadrupled in Past Decade: CDC – WebMD
Deaths From Narcotic Painkillers Quadrupled in Past Decade: CDC – WebMD.
Deaths from overdoses of drugs such as hydrocodone (Vicodin), morphine and oxycodone (Oxycontin) climbed from 1.4 per 100,000 people to 5.4 per 100,000, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That means about 3,000 people died in 1999 from unintentional overdoses. By 2011, that number was up to nearly 12,000 deaths, the report said.
FDA Okays Naloxegol Movantik in Opioid-Induced Constipation
If you read the source article you’ll never look at constipation the same way ever again. Better dig deeper to find out why your applicant is constipated. It may not be just a horrible diet and lack of dietary fiber.
And yet another FDA approved drug to counteract adverse effects from another FDA approved drug.
FDA Okays Naloxegol Movantik in Opioid-Induced Constipation.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved naloxegol (Movantik, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals), a peripherally acting opioid receptor antagonist, for the treatment of opioid-induced constipation (OIC) in adults with chronic noncancer pain.
OIC is a common adverse effect of opioid use. An estimated 40% to 80% of patients receiving long-term opioid therapy experience OIC, which can be severe enough to cause discontinuation of opioid therapy.
FDA Approves Bupropion/Naltrexone Contrave for Obesity
FDA Approves Bupropion/Naltrexone Contrave for Obesity.
If I’m understanding this correctly we now have an anti-depressant combined with a drug originally approved for treating opioid, then alcohol addiction, approved by the FDA to treat obesity.
This will be interesting.
UPDATE
Obesity drugs have side effects. The reason it’s taken three years for the FDA to approve NB32/Contrave is that obesity drugs have serious side effects. So serious, in fact, that several major diet drugs have been yanked from the market, making doctors, regulators and yes, investors shy away. Cardiovascular disease and mood problems are just two of the potentially serious side effects associated with Qsymia and Belviq. Older drugs Xenical and Alli carry a risk of permanent liver and kidney damage. And those weight loss supplements you buy over the counter? Some are deadly.
via Contrave: Is This The Weight Loss Drug We’ve Been Waiting For?.
Like I said, this will be interesting.
Many Meds Taken by Seniors Can Raise Risk of Falls
Many Meds Taken by Seniors Can Raise Risk of Falls.
After adjusting for the number of medications a person was taking, the researchers found men and women taking opioid painkillers as well as men taking antidepressants were more than twice as likely to have a fall injury as seniors who were not taking those drugs. Women taking antidepressants were 75% more likely to have a fall injury.
USPharmacist.com – Vitamin Deficiencies in Seniors
USPharmacist.com > Vitamin Deficiencies in Seniors.
Follow this link for some nice charts on nutritional deficiencies in seniors. Read the article and I promise you will never read an APS the same way ever again.
More on Sleeping Pills and Older Adults – NYTimes.com
More on Sleeping Pills and Older Adults – NYTimes.com.
Now the C.D.C. has reported that a high number of emergency room visits are associated with psychiatric medications in general, and zolpidem — Ambien — in particular. They’re implicated in 90,000 adult E.R. visits annually because of adverse reactions, the study found; more than 19 percent of those visits result in hospital admissions.
Blood-Thinner Pradaxa: What You Should Know
Blood-Thinner Pradaxa: What You Should Know.
Concerns about Pradaxa surfaced 2 years ago, he says, when doctors began reporting a larger number of serious and sometimes fatal bleeding problems in older patients on the drug.
The claim by the company that the drug needs no blood-level monitoring is misguided, Moore says. “It turns out the company has had data for several years, showing the amount of anticoagulation [blood thinning] varied [from patient to patient] more than five-fold.”
That means, Moore says, that “the same dose could produce widely varying effects on blood clotting. Some patients would be at extremely high risk of bleeding. Others would not get a strong enough blood clotting effect to serve its purpose, reduce the risk of stroke.”
Do the phrases “serious and sometimes fatal bleeding problems” combined with the drug maker’s withholding of data bother anyone? And yet another example of putting profits before people.
Update 07.27.14
I found another fine article on the Pradaxa mess. Follow the link to The Poison Review. There you will find more details on this story and more links for further reading, including a link to the full text BMJ article.
The Institute for Safe Medication Practices reported that in 2011 there were 3781 serious adverse effects and 542 patient deaths reported in the United States in association with dabigatran. In comparison, warfarin (Coumadin) was associated with only 72 deaths during that same time period. – See more at: http://www.thepoisonreview.com/2014/07/27/must-read-marketing-vs-medicine-in-the-case-of-pradaxa-dabigatran/#sthash.tpAapuE6.dpuf
Must-read: marketing vs. medicine in the case of Pradaxa dabigatran | The Poison Review.
Update 08.22.14
Getting the dabigatran Pradaxa story right… Correcting four common mistakes..
If you’re not totally confused by now you should be.
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