Wednesday, June 23, 2004

Actually, it appears I *will* be ranting after all...

Check this out: Asthma drug may boost risk of deadly asthma attacks

That's the headline for another one of today's stories. "One of the most commonly prescribed medicines to treat America's 16 million asthmatics may actually make asthma worse and contribute to heart problems, two studies find."

When I first read this, I was (as you can imagine) a little upset. But then I read on: "Salpeter and her team reviewed studies conducted from 1966 to 2003 of asthmatics taking beta-agonists. They found that patients who took the drug daily developed a tolerance and had more inflammation in their lungs than those not taking the drug at all, making them more susceptible to a potentially deadly attack."

...which led me to ask, why would any asthmatic take Albuterol every day? Isn't it just for treatment during an attack? That's how it's been prescribed to us.

And then I remembered: Advair. The wonder drug that toddlers cannot take because it doesn't work with a spacer. Advair is a combination of Serevent (fast-acting bronchiodialator) and Flovent (corticosteroid).

So if you're taking Advair every day -- and you would do -- I'm guessing that you may be doing more harm than good? I haven't found any articles specifically implicating Advair, but, hey, this is just today's news.

That might be fodder for tomorrow's post.

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