Lifestyle Side Effects

E-Cigarette Side Effects: Safe or Dangerous to Your Health?

E-Cigarette Side Effects: Safe or Dangerous to Your Health? So you want to quit smoking and want to know if e-cigarettes can help you kick the deadly habit? Or do you want to help a loved one stop smoking?

Since the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement forced the four biggest American tobacco companies to compensate people with lung cancer and other ailments caused by smoking, awareness of the health hazards of smoking has grown by leaps and bounds.

The current global tobacco epidemic continues to claim nearly six million people each year, including five million smokers and ex-smokers and even more than 600,000 nonsmokers exposed to second-hand smoke.

But persistent anti-smoking campaigns launched by the World Health Organization (WHO) and other global public health authorities and nongovernment tobacco control groups over the past decades have made smoking an undesirable act and the smoker a pariah.

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Food and Drinks, Lifestyle Side Effects

AeroShot Caffeine Side Effects and Health Risks

AeroShot Caffeine Side Effects and Health Risks. No civilized society would give a club drug to kids as young as 12 years old. Right? Wrong, it seems, if the makers of the new AeroShot Pure Energy had their way.

Right now, the ‘inhalable’ caffeine products are only available in France and through the company’s website at US$2.99 per ‘inhaler.’ But these are expected to hit Boston and New York retail outlets this month, where they may be sold next to energy drinks.

That is, if the health regulators don’t heed the warnings of United States Senator Charles Schumer (Democrat, New York), who has attacked AeroShot as a potential health threat especially dangerous to teens and youngsters.

Schumer, who in the past has effectively crusaded against Four Loko [see Four Loko Side Effects] and other caffeinated alcoholic drinks as well as bath salts [see Dangerous Effects of Bath Salts], both of which have led to spates of emergency room visits and deaths, said AeroShot shouldn’t be sold in the U.S. until the Food and Drug Administration reviews the product.

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Heart Drugs

Xarelto Side Effects: Increased Bleeding?

Xarelto Side Effects. Physicians may soon add a new blood-thinning drug called Xarelto (rivaroxaban) to the standard treatment for people with “acute coronary syndrome”—and in doing so lower their risk for a subsequent heart attack or stroke, or death.

Acute coronary syndrome (ACS) is an umbrella term covering the conditions of angina and a prior history of heart attack.

“It seems a good chance that the drug will soon be approved for treatment following an acute coronary syndrome,” said Dr. Simeon Margolis, on Dec. 9 in his blog, “Your Best Health After 50” published regularly by Yahoo! Health.

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Drug Side Effects, Lifestyle Side Effects

Chantix Side Effects: Depression and Cardiovascular Problems?

Chantix Side Effects: Depression and Cardiovascular Problems? Chantix, the anti-smoking pill once heralded as a blockbuster drug and a major breakthrough in the science of helping smokers butt out, has been racking up a bad reputation for being linked to psychiatric problems and heart problems.

In a recent study, U.S. researchers said the popular smoking-cessation medication, made by drug maker Pfizer and sold as Champix in Canada, Europe and other countries, was linked to suicidal thoughts and aggression.

The new study, published in the journal PLoS One in November 2011, reviewed 3,249 case reports of smokers who experienced depressive symptoms while using medications to help them butt out.

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Pain Medications

Cymbalta Side Effects – Common and Serious – Chronic Pain

Cymbalta Side Effects. Cymbalta (duloxetine hydrochloride), a drug used to treat depressive disorder, can also be used to treat chronic musculoskeletal pain including discomfort from osteoarthritis and chronic lower back pain.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared the drug following clinical trials which proved its effectiveness against chronic pain.

Says Janet Woodcock (MD) director of FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research: “Up to three quarters of the population experience chronic pain at some time in their lives. This approval means that many of those people now have another treatment option.”

More from the FDA news release:
More than 29,000 patients have used Cymbalta in clinical trials, and more than 600 patients were studied in the clinical trials involving osteoarthritis and chronic low back pain.

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