Large Study Shows More Fen-Phen Damage
In the largest study to date, Minnesota researchers found heart valve problems in 25% of 226 patients who had taken one or both of the diet drugs collectively known as fen-phen. Similar abnormalities were found in only 1% of 81 similar people who had not taken the drugs.
Dr. Mehmood Khan of the Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis reported the finding at a meeting of the North American Assn. for the Study of Obesity.
More than 6 million Americans have taken the diet drugs Pondimin and Redux, which were recalled by the manufacturers in September because of the heart valve problem. The exact incidence of the problem in diet drug users and their non-dieting counterparts remains a subject of controversy.
Food and Drug Administration officials last week said that anyone who took the drugs should get a general checkup for signs of heart or lung disease, and anyone with signs of potential abnormalities should get an echocardiogram, which uses sound waves to study the heart structure.
Acne Medicine Eases Rheumatoid Arthritis
Minocycline, an antibiotic used to treat acne, significantly improves the swollen, painful joints of rheumatoid arthritis if therapy begins in the crippling disease’s early stages. Rheumatologists said the new study by the University of Nebraska provides enough proof of minocycline’s benefit that the drug soon may be widely prescribed for this purpose.
“This isn’t a cure,” Dr. James O’Dell told a meeting of the American College of Rheumatology. “If the medicine is stopped, the problem comes back.” But O’Dell said the drug appears to offer a unique arthritis protection: It seems to block enzymes, called metalloproteinases, that destroy irreplaceable cartilage inside joints. About 2 million Americans suffer rheumatoid arthritis, a chronic inflammatory disease.
More Defects Found From Sperm Injection
The incidence of birth defects among children of women who undergo intracytoplasmic sperm injection (the selection and injection of a single sperm into an egg) is higher than researchers previously believed, according to a report in the Nov. 15 British Medical Journal. The procedure is used in families in which the male has a low sperm count or certain other fertility disorders.
Dr. Jennifer Kurinczuk and her colleagues at the TVW Telethon Institute for Child Health Research in West Perth, Australia, reanalyzed data from a Belgian study and concluded that they had used an unusually narrow definition of birth defects. Comparing the Belgian data with data from western Australia, the team concluded that children conceived with intracytoplasmic sperm injection were twice as likely to have a major birth defect and 1.5 times more likely than the general Australian population to have a minor one.
New Drug May Combat Youths’ Blood Poisoning
A new genetically engineered drug may help children and young adults with meningococcal sepsis, a poisoning of the bloodstream caused by the bacterium Neisseria meningitidis. Although modern antibiotics kill the bacterium rapidly, fragments of the bacterial membrane that persist in the bloodstream act as a poison, killing 20% to 50% of those infected.
Dr. Brett Giroir and his colleagues at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas tested a new drug called rBPI on 26 children, ages 1 to 18, who were severely ill with meningococcal sepsis. The drug binds to and neutralizes the membrane fragments in the blood. Normally, physicians would have expected four to eight of the 26 patients to die. The team reported in the Nov. 15 Lancet that only one died. The team has now launched a larger study of the drug.
Male Birth Control Pill Shows Promise in Italy
An experimental oral male birth control pill has shown promising results in a pilot study in Italy. The pills contain two hormones, cyproterone acetate and testosterone undecanoate. Cyproterone is an estrogen analog that suppresses sperm production, while the testosterone helps maintain libido.
Researchers from the S. Orsola Hospital in Bologna gave two pills daily to eight men. They report in the November Fertility and Sterility that sperm levels in six of the men fell to levels that are associated with infertility. There were no significant side effects, and all the men’s sperm levels rebounded to normal within three months after the end of the trial.
Pesticide Residues Pose Negligible Cancer Risk
Exposure to the minute quantities of pesticide residues on fruits and vegetables poses a negligible cancer risk and is far outweighed by the anticancer benefits of the foods, according to the findings of a select panel convened by the National Cancer Institute of Canada. The panel was formed in reaction to the growing concern that contact with pesticides may be a major cause of cancer.
The panel’s report in the Nov. 15 journal Cancer also concluded that there has been no overall increase in cancer risk since 1981, that safety regulations and procedures offer the public a wide margin of safety and that agricultural uses of pesticides play a substantial role in providing a large amount of low-cost, high-quality food products.
Compiled by THOMAS H. MAUGH II
