14 DAY TRIAL // All-efficient obesity drugs are in high demand these days, as statistics show that selling such pills has become an increasingly profitable business throughout the United States. Unfortunately for people trying to lose weight rapidly, these drugs are not always correctly tested for their impact on human health, and are rushed into mass production and distribution, with no regard to their potential effects.
Such was the case with fenfluramine, an obesity drug that was found to be extremely harmful to the human heart shortly after it was released into pharmacies. By 1997, the drug was withdrawn from shelves and its production banned completely. However, a recent scientific study conducted by a team of medical professionals from the Central Utah Clinic, led by Charles Dahl, showed that the effects of the pill still linger in patients who stopped using the medication as far as 11 years ago.
The research team analyzed the effects fenfluramine had on some 5743 users and noticed that their hearts were significantly more prone to developing defects and regurgitations than those of obese people who had not been on the drug at all. Cardiac regurgitation is a phenomenon that involves the heart's valves being unable to send the blood in the right direction. As a result, it "backstreams" and can cause swirls inside the heart or the neighboring veins.
This affliction can lead to congestive heart failure or to patients having to get a heart valve surgery. Both afflictions can have fatal consequences, either through sudden death, or if the surgery fails. "This is probably a conservative estimate, as another study has shown that there exists a 17- to 34-fold excess of clinically apparent (presumably severe), valvular disease in persons who had used fenfluramines for four months or longer," said Dahl.
"We found clear evidence for a strong, graded association between duration of exposure to fenfluramines and prevalence of aortic regurgitation and for mild or greater mitral and tricuspid regurgitation," he added.