Results for search "Prescription Drugs".
03 Feb
A new study finds while some antidepressants help certain pain conditions, others are either ineffective or the evidence is inconclusive.
MONDAY, March 13, 2023 (HealthDay News) – Migraine sufferers will soon have a new treatment option that works more quickly and may be safer for people at risk of heart attack or stroke.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Pfizer Inc.’s zavegepant (Zavzpret), a nasal spray meant to treat severe headache pain, the company announced Friday.
“The FDA approval of Za...
Many older adults with depression don’t respond to their first antidepressant, so doctors will switch them to another one to see if that does the trick.
Now, new research suggests that the best strategy for these folks may instead be to add the antipsychotic drug Abilify (aripiprazole) to the original antidepressant.
“This is good news for older adults with difficult-to-tr...
Ongoing shortages of a medication that hospitals and emergency rooms rely upon to treat breathing problems are likely to worsen in coming days and weeks, experts warn.
That’s because one of the two major U.S. suppliers of liquid albuterol, Akorn Pharmaceuticals, abruptly laid off its entire workforce and closed plants in New Jersey, New York and Illinois in late February.
“We’...
Acetaminophen, a popular over-the-counter medication for millions struggling with pain and fever, can also be found in prescription painkillers that combine acetaminophen and an opioid into one pill.
The problem? The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has long known that high dosages of acetaminophen (Tylenol) can harm the liver. So, in 2011 the FDA set new safety limits on exactly how muc...
Pregnant women will no longer have any drug to prevent preterm birth after the maker of the only available treatment announced Tuesday that it will withdraw its product, Makena, from the market.
Covis Pharma Group's decision follows a U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel vote last October that concluded the drug does not actually benefit newborns.
“While we stand by M...
A new study is raising questions about the effectiveness of medications long used to prevent painful kidney stones, but experts say there's no reason for patients to toss their prescriptions out at this point.
Anyone who has ever passed a kidney stone would prefer to avoid a repeat experience. And for many years, doctors have prescribed thiazide diuretics as one preventive tactic.
B...
When Black patients struggle with dementia, they are less likely to receive helpful medications than their white peers, a new study warns.
Researchers looked at how often patients received one or more of five classes of medications commonly given to dementia patients living at home.
The study builds on prior research that has identified a racial gap in use of dementia medicine among...
THURSDAY, Feb. 2, 2023 (HealthDay News) – The wildly popular weight-loss drug Wegovy has become hard to find, but that could soon change.
Novo Nordisk, which makes the medication, said Wednesday that it has increased production to meet demand.
“We know for a fact that patients have been lined up,” CEO
Mila Clarke started taking Ozempic in 2020 to help manage her diabetes, but was pleasantly surprised to find herself soon shedding pounds.
“I was like, this is really weird because I’m not having to try very hard to do this,” said Clarke, who has been diagnosed with both type 1 and type 2 diabetes and chronicles her diabetes journey on her
The U.S. government could save billions every year once Medicare begins negotiating drug prices in 2026, new research suggests.
The Inflation Reduction Act passed by Congress last year allows Medicare to bargain with drug companies on the prices of 10 of the highest-priced drugs in 2026 before ...
Nearly 20% of American adults use a drug to help them sleep, either occasionally or regularly, health officials reported Wednesday.
Sleep medications, sold both over-the-counter and by prescription, are a common treatment for sleep problems, said senior report author Lindsey Black
New research suggests that there's one potential way to reduce demand for prescription codeine: legalizing recreational cannabis.
Exactly what brought scientists to that conclusion? States that legalized cannabis use saw a significant reduction in pharmacy-based distribution of codeine, an opioid with a high potential for misuse.
“A reduction in the misuse of opioids can save live...
It doesn’t matter which water pill you’re prescribed to treat your heart failure, because new trial data shows that one works as well as the other.
Two diuretics widely used to treat heart failure, furosemide and torsemide, showed no difference in their ability to improve patient survival, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH)-sponsored trial.
“We’re not ...
Television ads for drugs are filled with glowing images of people living their best lives, all thanks to that new med they’ve been prescribed.
But drugs being touted on TV often have little to no benefit compared to other treatments, a new study published online Jan. 13 in JA...
Not all prescription drugs and dietary herbal supplements work well together.
It’s important to be aware of possible drug/supplement interactions that could be harmful, according to the U.S. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), a part of the National Institutes of Health.
Th...
American adults who have epilepsy and are Black or Hispanic are less likely than white adults to be prescribed the latest medications, according to new research.
“While finding the right medication is often a trial-and-error process that is based on the individual, studies have shown that use of newer medications improves outcomes, and some newer medications have fewer side effects,” ...
Could a simple letter prompt doctors to prescribe opioids more safely?
Yes, claims new research that found reminding doctors to check a prescription database before doling out opioids increased their engagement with the program, having the potential to create more informed prescribing.
The study enrolled clinicians in Minnesota who prescribed opioids with benzodiazepines or gabapent...
A leading pediatricians' group has issued new guidelines on treating obesity in children and teens that, for the first time, call for early, aggressive intervention that can include weight-loss drugs and surgery.
“There is no evidence that ‘watchful waiting’ or delayed treatment is appropriate for children with obesity,” Dr.
One low-cost intervention could make a difference in America's epidemic of opioid overdoses, a new study suggests.
When health care providers were notified that one of their patients had died from an overdose, they wrote fewer opioid prescriptions for up to a year later.
The University of Southern California (USC) study built upon earlier findings that letters like these could reduc...
COVID-19 patients could soon have a new antiviral pill they can take to guard against severe disease.
The treatment, called VV116, worked as well as Paxlovid in people who were at high risk of severe disease in a phase 3 trial in China.
The trial was a “great success,” study co-author Ren Zhao, a professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, said in a
As doctors have tried to steer their chronic pain patients away from highly addictive opioids, many have turned to two antiseizure drugs, but a new review finds they are only "modestly effective" at treating pain.
Gabapentin and pregabalin are being prescribed to manage all types of pain, but clinical trial data shows that the drugs have limited effectiveness, said lead researcher
Doctors are notorious for criticizing patients who don't take medications as prescribed.
But physicians and their families are themselves less likely than everyone else to comply with medication guidelines, a new, large-scale study has found.
People tend to adhere to medication guidelines about 54% of the time, while doctors and their families lag about 4 percentage points behind th...
Shortages of the ADHD drug Adderall are expected to continue for months, forcing families to scramble for ways to deal with their children's attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
The shortage has caused headaches and hassles for parents like San Diego mom Jackie Meader, who has been "flustered, rushed and out of sorts" since her 16-year-old son's prescription ran out about a mo...
An attempt to block California's flavored tobacco ban was stopped Monday when the Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
That now means the ban will go into effect on Dec. 21.
The ban includes everything from candy flavors to menthol in a wide range of tobacco products including vape ...
The antiviral Paxlovid has kept people from getting really sick and dying from COVID-19 since it became available -- at no cost to them.
But by the middle of next year, the U.S. government will stop subsidizing the medication. Instead, it will be billed for like many other medications.
While the Biden administration has paid about $530 for each course of the medication by buying 2...
One of the two most common drugs used to treat age-related macular degeneration (AMD) appears better than the other, a new, small study suggests.
Among 106 patients with "wet" age-related macular degeneration, 50% of those treated with aflibercept (Eylea) could be weaned off the drug after one year, compared with only 17% of those treated with bevacizumab (Avastin), researchers found.
The EpiPen is a known lifesaver when someone with a serious food allergy eats something they can't tolerate.
Yet the auto-injection treatment is greatly underused in the United States, according to a new survey.
Just over half of at-risk adults said they had ever been prescribed the device, researchers found. And more than one-third of severe allergy sufferers mistakenly believe th...
When people with heart failure wind up in the hospital, it tends to become a slippery slope: They are more likely to be readmitted or die within six months during this vulnerable period.
Now, new research shows that ramping up doses of three heart failure medications within two weeks of hospital discharge along with more frequent follow-up visits cuts the risk of both hospital readmission...
Some patients with high blood pressure can't get it under control with standard medications, but a new study shows an experimental drug is up to the task of treating these tough-to-treat cases.
Why do some folks struggle more with managing their high blood pressure than others? When the hypertension i...
Patients with heart failure are often prescribed a diuretic or "water pill" to prevent fluid buildup. A new study has found that two often-prescribed medications work equally well at reducing deaths.
"Given that the two different therapies provide the same effect on outcomes, we shouldn't spend time switching patients from one to the other, and instead concentrate on giving the right dos...
The antiviral pill Paxlovid not only reduces hospitalization and death after catching COVID-19: New research shows it also cuts the chances of long COVID by roughly 25%.
The drug, which combines a newer antiviral called nirmatrelvir with an older medication known as ritonavir, del...
A new study has shown the blood pressure drug telmisartan may offer new hope as an Alzheimer's treatment in Black patients. It did not show the same benefit in white people.
Learning how people from different ethnic groups respond to the same drug could be key in the fight against Alzheimer's disease, researchers say. Even though Black people are more likely than white folks to develop th...
Years of litigation over the opioid epidemic could end soon, as the national pharmacy chains CVS and Walgreens announced Wednesday that each company has agreed to a nearly $5 billion settlement.
While neither of the companies admitted wrongdoing, the settlements are part of the fight over the drug industry's role in the epidemic that has led to 500,000 U.S. deaths in the past 20 years, t...
For the millions of people who live with vitiligo, a disease that robs the skin of its natural color, a newly approved cream called ruxolitinib (Opzelura) is quickly becoming a game changer.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration
A study testing drugs that are used for other conditions for their potential in treating COVID-19 has found that the antidepressant fluvoxamine (brand name Luvox) offered no benefit, at least at an initial smaller dose.
Study participants took 50 mg of the medication twice daily for 10 days, hoping to treat mild-to-moderate COVID-19 symptoms. A control group took a placebo.
“There...
People with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or narcolepsy may rely on the drug Adderall, but it is in short supply, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced Wednesday.
The Adderall and Adderall IR shortage is due to intermittent man...
While politicians and health officials seek solutions to an opioid epidemic that kills tens of thousands every year, doctors who prescribe the pain medications are seeking alternatives for their patients.
While certain minority groups are more likely to be diagnosed with dementia than their white counterparts, they may also be less likely to be eligible for new disease-slowing treatments, a new study finds.
Cognitive, or mental, impairment in Black, Hispanic and Asian patients is more likely to be caused by forms of dementia unrelated to the
Patients with weakened immune systems could be inadvertently helping COVID-19 develop resistance to the antiviral drug remdesivir, a new study reports.
After lengthy COVID infections, two kidney transplant patients on immune-suppressing drugs to prevent organ rejection developed a mutated version of SARS-CoV-2 resistant to remdesivir, according to
For many years, doctors have advised taking low-dose aspirin to help prevent first-time heart attacks and stroke. But increasingly, they're doing an about-face.
The latest warnings come from University of Michigan researchers who reported that patients simultaneously taking another blood thinner,
Sonia Dhaliwal knows exactly how bad childhood eczema can get.
That's because her young daughter, Ariah Khan, has struggled with a severe case of the skin condition ever since she was a baby.
Ariah's symptoms were relentless and debilitating until the age of 3. They included rashes; skin discoloration...
Your dog may like to lick your hand or face, but if you're using a chemotherapy cream that treats certain skin conditions, you should not allow it, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration advises.
The medication fluorouracil is fatal to dogs when ingested. People who keep the cream on a nightstand or counter sh...
It doesn't seem to matter what time of day or night you take your blood pressure medication, a new study finds.
The results of a randomized trial of more than 21,000 patients with high blood pressure who were follo...
In a finding that proves convenience is key when it comes to sticking to a medication regimen, new research shows that combining three heart drugs into one "polypill" slashes the risk of dying from a second heart attack by 33%.
"The results of the SECURE study show that for the first time that the polypill, wh...
Labor shortages at Teva Pharmaceuticals have made Adderall, a widely used attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) drug, hard to find in some drugstores.
But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration noted that there's no overall shortage of
Fewer Americans are turning to sleep medications to fight insomnia.
After a dramatic rise in prescriptions for drugs like Ambien, the trend has ebbed, according to a new study, and fewer doctors are prescribing sleep medications
Naloxone is a lifesaving antidote to an opioid overdose, but it may be priced too high for those most vulnerable to opioid-related death, a new study finds.
Between 2014 and 2018, naloxone costs rose 500% for those without insurance, while out-of-pocket costs for the medication dropped 26% for people with i...
Two drugs touted as potential COVID-19 treatments, ivermectin and fluvoxamine, don't do a thing to improve patients' oxygen levels and keep them out of the hospital or the morgue, a new clinical trial has shown.
Neither of the two repurposed drugs proved effective against COVID among overweight or obese patients who received them within seven days of symptom onset, according to results pu...
President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law, making it the most significant health care legislation enacted in more than a decade.
How will it affect health care?
Millions of Americans covered by Medicare will see big reductions in costs for both health care and...