Current obesity news

November 20, 1998 - Source: Reuters

Warner-Lambert to study wider use of diabetes drug

Warner-Lambert Co. said Friday it will study the ability of its controversial drug Rezulin to treat a precondition of diabetes after receiving the go-ahead from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

``It's a very bullish statement on the FDA's level of comfort with the drug,'' said Mara Goldstein, an analyst with CIBC Oppenheimer, referring to the Agency's willingness to allow Warner-Lambert to proceed with its Rezulin studies.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) in June discontinued its own trial of the drug, when one patient in the study experienced liver failure and later died.

The five-year Warner-Lambert study, like the NIH study, will test Rezulin's effect on impaired glucose tolerance, a precursor to adult onset type II diabetes that affects 21 million people, according to a spokeswoman for Warner-Lambert.

Use of the drug for healthy, pre-diabetic patients would significantly expand the drug's potential market. Rezulin is now prescribed to about 1.3 million people with type II diabetes who are not sufficiently responsive to insulin, the spokeswoman said. Insulin regulates blood sugar levels in the body.

In July the FDA said that despite the Rezulin-related deaths of 14 people from liver failure, and calls to pull the drug from groups such as Ralph Nader's Public Citizen, the drug was worth keeping on the market.

The agency determined that in all cases, the deaths were due to the failure to properly monitor use of the drug.

``They do enough blood tests now where it can be detected early enough to prevent liver failure,'' Alex Zisson of Hambrecht & Quist said.

Smithkline Beecham Plc and Eli Lilly & Co. are currently developing similar products that do not appear to be associated with liver toxicity, analysts said.

Smithkline intends to submit data on its drug Avandia to the FDA by the end of the year, meaning that the drug could go to market before the end of Warner-Lambert's five-year trial.

But CIBC's Goldstein pointed out that Smithkline had the benefit of being able to observe the problems that occurred with Rezulin.

November 9, 1998 - Source: American Heart Association 71st Scientific Sessions

High blood pressure alert sounded

A top national health official sounded ''a call to action,'' telling U.S. doctors to aggressively treat people with high blood pressure in order to continue progress in fighting heart disease and stroke.

Dr. Claude Lenfant, director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute in Bethesda, Md., said despite three decades of steady success, there is a disturbing trend in the wrong direction, which Lenfant ties to failures in adequately identifying and treating people with high blood pressure.

In a symposium at the American Heart Association annual meeting in Dallas, experts said barely one-quarter of the 43 million Americans with high blood pressure are getting proper treatment for their condition, which greatly increases risk of heart attack and stroke.

Lenfant predicted that the nation's health system will fall short of the 2000 goal of controlling blood pressure in half the people in the U. S. with high blood pressure. He said about 68 percent of Americans are aware they have high blood pressure, but only 53 percent are receiving treatment for their condition _ and just 27 percent of the total are adequately controlling blood pressure.

He said the failure to control the disease does not relate to lack of drugs to do the job.

Lenfant said: ''We know we can do it, but we are not doing it. We are being complacent. It is a very alarming situation, indeed.''

In addition, other speakers at the symposium said Lenfant's goal of trying to reach a blood pressure reading of 140/90 is not the best level to shoot for. Blood pressure is measured in millimeters of pressure; the higher the systolic (the higher number) and diastolic (lower number), the greater the risk of cardiovascular damage. The ideal blood pressure for most Americans is 120/80.

Dr. Lennart Hansson, professor of medicine at the University of Uppsala, Sweden, said new evidence shows the real goal should be to get pressure to less than 140/85. He said lowering blood pressure 5 mm translates to a reduction in stroke and heart attack of 15 percent to 20 percent.

''It is imperative that physicians aggressively treat hypertension (high blood pressure) in order to reduce cardiovascular risk,'' said Dr. Henry Black, chairman of the department of preventive medicine at Rush- Presbyterian-St. Lukes Medical Center in Chicago.

He emphasized that doctors should especially seek to treat African- Americans, the elderly and diabetics who have high blood pressure.

While the doctors have many drugs to attack high blood pressure, more are on the way.

Dr. John Burnett Jr., professor of medicine and physiology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., said studies with the drug omapatrilat, which attacks two different systems in the cascade of events that leads to high blood pressure, lowers blood pressure in people better than standard drugs.

Although he reported on preliminary studies involving a few dozen people, more extensive studies of the drug, the first in a class known as vasopeptidase inhibitors, are under way, said Dr. Tony Coles of Princeton, N.J., an executive with Bristol-Myers Squibb, manufacturer of omapatrilat.

November 5, 1998 - Source: New England Journal of Medicine

Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs Improve Survival after Heart Attack

Cholesterol-lowering drugs can significantly reduce the risk of death in heart attack victims, even if their cholesterol levels are not greatly elevated, according to study published today.

In the study, 9014 people who survived heart attacks or serious angina were randomly assigned to get either pravastatin, known as Pravachol, or dummy pills.

Over six years of follow-up, Pravachol reduced deaths from heart disease by 24 percent. Deaths from all causes fell from 14 percent to 11 percent.

In the United States, about 30 percent of heart attack survivors are taking cholesterol-lowering medicines.

Results of the study conducted by Dr. Andrew Tonkin and others from the University of Sydney in Australia were first reported by the authors last year at the 70th Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association.

The results were published in today's issue of the

The 71st Scientific Sessions of AHA will start on November 8, 1998, and will be covered daily by us - our seventh congress coverage of the year.

November 4, 1998 - Source: JAMA

Diabetes control enhances quality of life

Strict control of blood sugar levels through diet and medication results in a better quality of life and lower healthcare costs in patients with type 2 diabetes, researchers report.

``The bottom line for patients with diabetes is that the effort you put into establishing better control, in terms of blood-sugar load, will pay off in terms of quality-of-life gains,'' said study co-author Dr. Marcia Testa of the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts. The report is published in the November 4th issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Diabetes experts have long debated the value of tight glycemic (blood-sugar) control in patients with type 2 diabetes, the adult-onset form of the disease that affects the majority of diabetics. While glycemic control can produce health benefits, these are often offset by the disruptions in daily routine that vigilant attention to blood sugar often requires.

In their study, Drs. Marcia Testa and Donald Simonson focused on quality-of-life issues among type 2 diabetics. They treated 569 diabetic patients with either a special diet and the oral hypoglycemic drug glipizide GITS, or the diet and an inactive placebo, for 12 weeks.

The researchers found that after 12 weeks, fasting blood glucose levels and HbA1c levels -- a marker of blood sugar control -- were lower in the group of patients taking the drug than in the placebo group, indicating better control of blood sugar.

The team also found that patients taking a placebo had ``a nearly 5-fold increase in risk of (workplace) absenteeism'' compared with those on the tighter regimen. Job security seemed to rise as well: By 15 weeks after commencement of therapy, 97% of patients on the drugs-and-diet program remained fully employed, the authors report, compared with just 85% of those on the diet-only program, a statistically significant difference.

Much of this improvement can be tied to reductions in diabetes symptoms, such as weakness and fatigue. The study found that the number of patients requiring at least a half-day of bed-rest during the study period dropped by 0.4% among the drug-and-diet group. Conversely, the need for bed-rest rose by 4.4% among those patients treated with diet only.

The researchers believe these quality-of-life benefits are directly related to reductions in hyperglycemia (high blood sugar) levels following tight blood-sugar control. The tight-control regimen was also effective in keeping the incidence of dangerous hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) to a minimum, the authors conclude.

Stricter control reduced the number of doctor visits as well. The researchers write that as ``quality of life improved with better glycemic control, overall healthcare use decreased.''

Testa and Simonson believe their findings could have a real impact on employer-sponsored health plans. ``For the payer, the lost productivity, increased absenteeism, and increased use of health resources associated with poor glycemic control should provide a strong incentive for demanding more comprehensive diabetes management from the healthcare provider,'' they write.

SOURCE:

Controversies abound the obesity drugs

Whether it is fen-phen or orlistat, the role of obesity drugs seems to be at large. The major issue is - safety. Redux had to be withdrawn from the market last year due to heart valve abnormalities. The use of orlistat might enhance the user's risk of getting a colon cancer.

Even the efficacy of these drugs has been questioned.

Read the most recent issue of Lancet (October 31, 1998)

September - October News:
June - August News:

8th International Congress on Obesity: Click here for further information
HOME: Back to APIMALL