ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, February 6, 1996 TAG: 9602060046
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 4 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Health Notes
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY|
Diet pills are nothing new. Many of us remember the amphetamines of 30 years ago that were abused as uppers as much as they were used for weight loss.
But researchers say the "new" diet pills - Pondimin and Ionamin - are nothing like the amphetamines. These drugs supposedly stop dieters' cravings for food without becoming addictive or making the person jumpy.
Two Roanoke Valley nurses are betting on this so much that they have established a business based on the pills.
Lee Ann Jones and Bonny Lee opened The Center for Bariatric Medicine on Mountain Avenue in Old Southwest on Jan. 15. Dr. Andrew Bockner, who has a psychiatric practice in the same building as the center, is the center's medical director.
Bariatrics s the study of the causes, prevention and treatment of obesity. While treatment at the clinic depends upon the diet pills, patients also will be exposed to counseling on nutrition and exercise, said Jones.
Jones is a former cardiac and geriatrics nurse with Carilion Health System. Lee, who has been in the area three years, owns Restorative Products, a prosthesis business. The two researched the project for a year before deciding to do it, Jones said. One of the things that spurred them on was finding that patients were driving from this area to bariatric centers in Tidewater and Northern Virginia for treatment.
Some of those patients already have transferred to the Roanoke center, Jones said.
The women also expect to get a boost in business from the appearance at Hotel Roanoke on Saturday of Dr. Steven Lamm, author of "Thinner at Last: The New Medicine that Releases Your Brain's Power to Bring About Permanent Weight Loss."
The nurses' decision to open the diet pill clinic came at about the time that Lamm's book began to show up on nonfiction best-seller lists, so they invited him to come talk about his experience prescribing the medications for his patients.
Tickets to his 6 p.m. talk are $5 and are available at the center and at Ram's Head Book Shop at Towers Shopping Center.
Lamm, a New York internist and a clinical assistant professor of medicine at New York University School of Medicine, did the book with the aid of writer Gerald Secor Couzens. In it he explains how his patients lost more than people on a conventional diet by taking a combination of Pondimin, also known as fenfluramine, and Ionmin, which is phentermine.
The drugs began to catch on about four years ago when a study at the University of Rochester Medical School found that patients who took the drug combo lost an average of nearly 16 percent of their body weight in 34 weeks - three times more than a control group not taking the pills.
Flenfluramine and phentermine act on the brain's neurotransmitters to control appetite, researchers found. The theory is that the drugs enhance the body's serotonin, the lack of which can make a person crave food.
News about the drugs is not all positive, however. Among possible side effects are diarrhea, dry mouth, fatigue and even memory loss, according to a May 1995 article in Reader's Digest - reprinted from Allure magazine.
Also, it is not recommended that the pills be given continuously When they are stopped, some patients regain the weight. Therapy that uses the pills has to be "intermittent," Jones said.
The pills are not a complete answer to too much weight, nor are they for everyone. Jones said persons who have come in with conditions like diabetes or high blood pressure are referred to their personal physicians.
LENGTH: Medium: 68 linesby CNB