Phentermine

According to his defense attorney, Dr. Robert M. Keenan, the diet doctor charged with running a large-scale drug lab, is simply misunderstood. A so-called Ecstasy cookbook found inside the doctor's Fells Point condo was not evidence of drug dealing, Michael E. Kaminkow told jurors at the start of Keenan's trial yesterday. The defense attorney told jurors that Keenan, 45, has published scores of research papers on illegal drugs and once worked for the National Institute on Drug Abuse. "This case has `reasonable doubt' written all over it," he told a jury in U.S. District Court in Baltimore.

The Food and Drug Administration announced last week that the nation's two most popular diet drugs, dexfenfluramine and Pondimin, or fenfluramine, would be pulled off the market because they may be linked to serious damage of patients' heart valves. Fenfluramine is half of the popular fen-phen combination, and dexfenfluramine is commonly known as Redux.The announcement has left many patients wondering what safe alternatives they now have to help them lose weight. The FDA said patients can continue to use the other half of fen-phen, phentermine, but some doctors doubt its effectiveness and are concerned with side effects.

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A lot of attention has been given recently to the benefits of dark chocolate for lowering blood pressure. A television report said that eating chocolate is as good as some blood pressure medicines. However, in the studies from which this conclusion was drawn, the average systolic pressure was only lowered 5 points and the diastolic pressure by about 3 points. While this is in the right direction, these numbers are hardly anything to get excited about. Why are people so enthusiastic about such limited results?

In the wake of a trial that brought a $23 million award to a Texas woman who sued manufacturers of the diet drug "cocktail" known as phen-fen, 20 Maryland residents have filed suits in U.S. District Court in Baltimore linking the drug to their health problems.The most serious allegation, made by Angela Borlik of Arnold, is that her husband, Michael, 48, died in May 1997 of primary pulmonary hypertension, a lung disease that she says the drugs caused.Other plaintiffs say they have suffered from heart disease or related cardiopulmonary problems, according to the suits.

Physician considers obesity a genetic disease; Weight: Paul Rivas, a Lutherville internist, fights fat with drugs in low doses.Slow is better when it comes to weight loss. And low is better when it comes to doses of drugs to help obese patients. So says diet doctor Paul Rivas, a Lutherville internist.He is a different kind of diet doctor. He has written a book on his belief that being fat is determined by genetics rather than behavior.That is a controversial position. Most doctors don't agree.

Pietr Hitzig was chasing fame and ignoring patients' needs when he cavalierly prescribed the now-banned fen-phen drug therapy as a treatment for everything from depression to drug addiction, federal prosecutors said yesterday. Closing the five-week trial of the former Timonium doctor, prosecutors described Hitzig as a "pill pusher" and asked a federal jury to find him guilty on 34 counts of illegally prescribing medicine to patients around the country, many whom he never met or examined.

A former Timonium doctor who once called himself the "father of fen-phen" continued yesterday to promote the drug combination's benefits, even as he defended himself against federal charges of illegally prescribing the medicine. Testifying during his 3-week-old trial in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, Pietr Hitzig said the results were "extremely remarkable" for the 5,000 to 7,000 patients across the country who followed his fen-phen protocol for everything from weight loss to depression to alcohol and drug addiction.

A former University of Maryland Medical Center surgeon was placed on probation yesterday for prescription drug fraud, and the sentencing judge told him he found the doctor's situation "a tragedy unlike one I have seen in a while." John Lee Flowers, 44, of Towson was forced to resign his job, faces the prospect of losing his medical license and has separated from his wife, Cindy Flowers, for whom he illegally prescribed painkillers and diet pills. Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Paul A. Hackner ordered a six-month suspended sentence, placed Flowers on one-year of probation and fined him $1,000.