When roasted at 475 degrees, coffee beans are sometimes described as rich and full-bodied. But for the full-bodied person who is not so rich, unroasted coffee beans — green as the day they were picked — may hold the key to cheap and effective weight loss, new research suggests. In a study presented Tuesday at the American Chemical Society's spring national meeting in San Diego, 16 overweight young adult... (read more)
Coke and PepsiCo Inc. are adjusting the formula of their caramel colour across the U.S so they don’t have to label their products with a cancer warning to comply with California regulations. However, Coca Cola are not changing the drink ingredients in the UK because the manufacturing process complies with European safety rules. Pepsi have yet to comment. The changes ha... (read more)
Prescription drugs to treat some of the most common chronic diseases, such as high cholesterol and diabetes, may become available over the counter under a plan being considered by U.S. regulators. In what would be a major shift in policy if finalized, the Food and Drug Administration is seeking public comment until Friday on a way to make these medications more readily available. It will also have a meet... (read more)
Health regulators are adding warnings to the labels of widely used cholesterol lowering drugs, such as Lipitor, to say they may raise levels of blood sugar and could cause memory loss. The Food and Drug Administration announced on Tuesday the changes to the safety information on the labels of statins such as Pfizer Inc's Lipitor, AstraZeneca's Crestor and Merck & Co's Zocor that are taken by tens of m... (read more)
States that allow raw milk sales have more than twice as many dairy-related disease outbreaks as states with prohibitions on such unpasteurized products, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study showed. The rate of incidents caused by raw milk, cheese and yogurt was 150 times greater than outbreaks linked to pasteurized milk, according to the Atlanta-based CDC’s study, published today i... (read more)
A British company is conducting landmark trials which could see medicines derived from or inspired by the cannabis plant itself making their way to American pharmacy shelves. GW Pharma is in advanced clinical trials for the world's first pharmaceutical developed from raw marijuana instead of synthetic equivalents - a mouth spray it hopes to market in the US as a treatment ... (read more)
People who take the recently approved blood-thinning medication dabigatran could have a slightly increased risk of heart attack compared with people who use the old standby drug warfarin, new research suggests. When dabigatran was approved in 2010, it became the first new medication for blood-clot prevention in about 50 years. Sold under the brand name Pradaxa, dabigatran has been taken by an estimated 500,... (read more)
Smokers who count on nicotine patches or gum to help them quit may want to reconsider: A new study finds that these and other nicotine replacement products aren't effective at preventing former smokers from relapsing in real-world conditions. Among 787 adults who had quit smoking within the previous two years, nearly a third reported having returned to using cigarettes, according to a study published... (read more)
A Government Accountability Report released this Thursday showed America's foster children being prescribed powerful psychotropic drugs, at doses beyond what the Food and Drug Administration has approved. At a congressional hearing the same day, Thursday saw lawmakers discussing both the problems and possible solutions. Obviously, those in foster care are more likely to have had elements of abuse or traumatic experi... (read more)
Pfizer's smoking cessation drug Chantix carries too many risks and should only be tried when other treatments fail, researchers said on Wednesday. Chantix was eight times more likely to be linked with a reported case of suicidal behavior or depression than other nicotine replacement products, such as the nicotine patch, they said. The findings contradict two studies released last month by the Food and Drug A... (read more)
A clinical trial found that patients receiving the Sapien valve experienced two and a half times more strokes and eight times as many vascular and bleeding complications than those who did not receive the implant, but they were more likely to survive one year after surgery. After a year, 69 percent of the Sapien patients were alive compared with 50 percen... (read more)
An experimental prostate cancer drug from Medivation Inc helped patients live longer in a late-stage study, sending the company's shares soaring on hopes that it will become a strong contender in an estimated $9 billion market. Medivation said on Thursday that an independent monitoring committee even recommended stopping the clinical trial of MDV3100 after seeing interim results, arguing that they showed eno... (read more)
All her life, Lindsay Shipp knew that she was dying. As a baby, she would cry after eating, and salt collected on her forehead. The diagnosis was cystic fibrosis, an incurable genetic disease that, at the time, meant a life expectancy of 18 years. The disease, which affects 30,000 people in the United States, hinders the movement of salt in the body. Because of this, the pancreas fails soon after bi... (read more)
The psychiatric side effects of a popular quit-smoking drug make it too dangerous to use as a first attempt to kick the habit, according to a new study. The authors suggest the drug should eventually be taken off the market altogether. The new study on the safety of varenicline (Chantix), appearing in the journal PLoS One, found that when compared with other smoking-cessation treatments, in... (read more)
Mela Sciences Inc. (MELA) has received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on its premarket application for a non-invasive tool used for early melanoma skin-cancer detection, ending a years-long battle for approval of the device. Shares of the medical device company shot up 13% to $6.10 in premarket trade as its chief executive touted the FDA clearance as "the most import... (read more)
Stimulants used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder do not increase the risk of heart attacks, strokes or sudden death, U.S. researchers said on Monday, in a finding that should reassure millions of parents whose children take the drugs. Researchers studied the medical records of more than 1 million children and young adults aged 2 to 24 who were taking or had taken stimulants such ... (read more)
U.S. Food and Drug Administration reviewers said Merck's cholesterol-lowering drug Vytorin was effective in reducing the rate of heart attacks or other cardiovascular problems in patients with kidney disease. The FDA reviewers also said Merck's blockbuster drug, which pairs a new type of cholesterol fighter Zetia with Merck's older statin drug Zocor, is unlikely to cause or promote cancer. "Risk... (read more)
President Barack Obama will sign an executive order on Monday to tackle an escalating shortage of life-saving medicines, including cancer treatments, according to a White House official. Hospitals and doctors across the country have been postponing care or using second-best or more costly alternatives, meaning hundreds of thousands of patients may not get the full care they need. A proposed law to addre... (read more)
People who use over-the-counter "thyroid support'' supplements may be putting their health at risk, according to a study being presented at the annual meeting of the American Thyroid Association. The supplements contain varying amounts of two different kinds of thyroid hormones apparently derived in large part from chopped up animal thyroid glands, says the study's senior investiga... (read more)
The use of long acting β²-adrenergic receptor agonists (LABAs) in children increases the risk for an excess of serious asthma-related events, according to a study published online Oct. 24 in Pediatrics. Ann W. McMahon, M.D., from the Office of Pediatric Therapeutics at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in Silver Spring, Md., and colleagues investigated the risk of serious asthma-related events wi... (read more)
A federal government advisory committee could decide Tuesday whether to recommend doctors vaccinate boys as young as 11 against the human papillomavirus, commonly referred to as HPV. HPV is the number-one sexually transmitted disease in the United States. At least 50% of sexually active people will get it at some point in their lives. The HPV vote is part of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization... (read more)
Smokers who take the smoking-cessation drug varenicline (Chantix) are no more likely to be hospitalized for psychiatric events than those who are using a nicotine patch to quit, according to data from two large government studies released Monday by the FDA. However, that doesn't mean that the quit-smoking drug might not be to blame for mood changes including hostility, agitation, depressed mood, and suicidal th... (read more)
How often do you look at the Nutrition Facts label on the side of the box? A new study reveals that people say they look at it a lot more than they actually do. For the study, University of Minnesota researchers recruited 203 participants to gauge what kind of information people looked at before deciding to buy a food product. The task involved a computer-based grocery shopping exercise in which the volunteers... (read more)
H. Lundbeck A/S, maker of the antidepressant Lexapro, won U.S. approval for a drug to treat seizures associated with a rare and severe form of childhood epilepsy. The Food and Drug Administration cleared the add-on therapy called Onfi, the agency said today in a statement. The medicine, chemically known as clobazam, may reach annual sales of 1 billion kroner ($187 million), Anders Gersel Pederse... (read more)
A symbol, such as a check mark or a star, should be displayed on the front of every food item and beverage sold in grocery stores so harried shoppers can judge nutritional value at a glance, according to a government-sponsored report released Thursday. In the report, a panel of experts from the Institute of Medicine told federal regulators that the epidemic of diet-related chronic diseases warrants a single ratin... (read more)
The Food and Drug Administration is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, one of the United States federal executive departments. The FDA is responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the regulation and supervision of food safety, tobacco products, dietary supplements, prescription and over-the-counter pharmaceutical drugs (medications), vaccines, biopharmaceuticals, blood transfusions, medical devices, electromagnetic radiation emitting devices (ERED), veterinary products, and cosmetics.
The FDA also enforces other laws, notably Section 361 of the Public Health Service Act and associated regulations, many of which are not directly related to food or drugs. These include sanitation requirements on interstate travel and control of disease on products ranging from certain household pets to sperm donation for assisted reproduction.
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