Essay, Research Paper: American Nutrition

Today in America, people put a lot of emphasis on their appearance hoping to achieve the perfect figure. The perfect figure that the American public hopes to achieve is typically good looking, tall, and most importantly has to be thin. Being thin is probably the hardest part for the American population to accomplish and are willing to try almost anything to make it happen. Methods of doing so include extreme workouts, crazy diets, and as of late, taking diet pills. Taking diet pills has been the biggest craze in America when trying to lose weight. The newest drug, as of late is phen-fen, which promised results that would almost eliminate obesity. The thought of becoming thin just by taking a pill made phen-fen the most popular diet drug on the market. After its approval, many studies were conducted to determine whether this wonder drug had any long-term side affects. Much research later showed that phen-fen was the cause of an unusual heart disease, but it made people lose weight.
When the results of these studies were released, magazines and newspapers around the globe informed people of the dangers of phen-fen. One such magazine was the Harvard Heart Letter in December of 1998. Within this article, the author William Lauderdale, wrote about three studies that were published by the New England Medical Journal about phen-fen. The article describes each of these studies by stating what was done, and what the results were. The research was conducted on humans who used the drug, who didn t use the drug, and in one study, those who were given a placebo. In each of the cases, phen-fen was shown to be directly related to this unusual heart disease. The New England Medical Journal does go into much more depth as to what happened and what their findings were when these studies were conducted.
The New England Medical Journal conducted three different studies on the effect phen-fen had on the human body. Researchers, in the first study, used echocardiograms, images of the heart using sound waves, to see if there was any difference between people who had used phen-fen, and people that had never touched it. Within the group that did not use the drug, only 1.9% showed heart-valve abnormalities. However, the group that had taken it, the range was between 13-26% of displaying heart-valve abnormalities. The groups both had 32 participants, but the group that was taking phen-fen had been using the drugs for twenty-three days before the study was conducted. Results showed that phen-fen may be a cause for heart-valve abnormalities.
The second study used computerized medical records to follow four groups of patients: those taking dexfenfluramine, those taking fenfluramine, those taking phentermine, and those who had never taken appetite suppressants. For the next four years, there were no new heart diseases within the group who had never taken appetite suppressants. The other groups, however, displayed different results. There were a small number of new heart diseases with people that had taken the drugs for less than three months. But, the people who had used them for an extended period of time displayed significantly higher.
In the third study, echocardiography was performed on patients taking regular and long-acting forms of dexfenfluramine and on patients taking a placebo. Once again, just
as the other studies had shown, the group that took the drugs displayed a higher rate of heart diseases.
The popular article was trying to convey the message to the reader that the diet pill phen-fen is unhealthy and is a cause of abnormal heart diseases. Within the article, it talked of studies performed that were published in the New England Medical Journal. The popular article contained no false information about the New England Medical Journal s report. Therefore the popular article was a reliable source and gave true information and facts.
People want to be thin to appeal to the opposite sex, as well as making themselves feel better. Because of this, people will go to any extent to become thin, and want to be thin as soon as possible. Diet pills seemed to be the immediate answer, especially when the wonder drug phen-fen came about. This drug promised an almost immediate cure for obesity, but it also was proven that this drug cause heart-valve abnormalities. This drug will help make you thin, but there is definitely a price to pay, a serious price. Therefore diet pills, such as phen-fen, should be tested more thoroughly before they are sold to the American public so that this won t happen again.