Prescription Drug Patches Gaining Ground, Tackling New Therapies
Created as an alternate route of drug administration to improve patient compliance and reduce drug side effects, prescription skin patches are rapidly becoming an important healthcare product category. While quietly gaining market share for the treatment of chronic conditions such as angina, hypertension and HRT, the technology is set to make further inroads as transdermal patches for a host of n...Prescription pain patch abuse blamed for increase in deaths
Drug abusers are increasingly turning to a slow-release form of a powerful painkiller for a quick and dangerous high, University of Florida researchers warn. The trend is raising alarm as the number of people dying from an overdose of the drug fentanyl, an opioid 100 times more potent than morphine, rises. Addicts are misusing a clear patch that transfers a controlled dose of fentanyl thro...Earth Rx: A microbial biotechnology prescription for global environmental health
Water. Waste. Energy. This trio of problems is among the greatest challenges to the environmental health of society. Water purification alone is becoming more problematic in the world due to our increasingly reliance on contaminated sources, such as polluted rivers, lakes and groundwater. "All of these issues are closely interrelated," says Bruce Rittmann, director of the Center for En...Efficiency, not more doctors, is the prescription for aging population
Recent news reports that threaten a shortage of doctors to treat the burgeoning elderly population are wrong, according to researchers at Dartmouth Medical School's Center for the Evaluative Clinical Sciences (CECS). In a study published in the March/April issue of Health Affairs, they argue that if employed efficiently, the current supply of physicians and medical students will be adequate thro...Psychotropic drug prescriptions for teens surge 250 percent over 7 year period
Psychotropic drug prescriptions for teenagers skyrocketed 250 percent between 1994 and 2001, rising particularly sharply after 1999, when the federal government allowed direct-to-consumer advertising and looser promotion of off-label use of prescription drugs, according to a new Brandeis University study in the journal Psychiatric Services. This dramatic increase in adolescent visits to h...A prescription cream for unwanted facial hair
VaniqaT is a prescription drug which was approved by the FDA in the United States on July 31, 2000 for treating excessive facial hair in women, which is often part of hirsutism. It may be a welcome alternative for women for whom this problem is considered serious enough to warrant tweezing, waxing, or shaving at least once a week for hair removal. Vaniqa is actually not a b...Lose Weight With New Wonder Slimming FDA approved Prescription Drug
There is a new wonder slimming FDA approved drug which can actually works. Not only that - it even lets you eat normally, all while you are slimming. This wonder slimming drug is XENICAL. Xenical allows about 30% of the fat eaten in a meal // to pass through the gut undigested. Your body cannot convert these excess calories to fatty tissue or use them as a source of energy. This will...Prescription Drug - Helps People Stop Smoking
The Mumbai-based Sun Pharmaceutical Industries entered the antismoking segment with its "Smoquit" (buproprion 150mg tabs) recently. The medication in Smoquit has been used for over a decade as an antidepressant, albeit at a different dose. The Rs. 13.50-per tablet priced Smoquit, the first pharmacotherapy ever available for the treatment of smoking problem, is a prescription drug and is required...Misleading Advertisements for Prescription Drugs
In direct-to-consumer advertisements of prescription drugs, statements about drug benefits are often overblown and misleading. "These advertisements rarely quantify the medications' expected benefit; instead, they make an emotional appeal," Dr. Steven Woloshin from Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, New Hampshire. // Instead of telling the consumer how likely it is that the medicine i...Patients Pressure Would Result In Overprescription
Overprescription and subsequent overuse of antibiotics is an increasing concern, contributing to higher drug costs and the increasing prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. But in many cases, doctors' over-prescribing of medication may not be due to misdiagnoses, but to insistent requests and subtle hints from their patients. // Scott and his colleagues analyzed data from a 1996...