Capsules

>Some drug manufacturers argue that strict tests for safety and effectiveness are unnecessary for over-the-counter medicines. But two Pennsylvania researchers offer a case study to support the argument for such tests. Dr. Karl Rickels and Peter Hesbacher report in the A.M.A. Journal that Compoz, one of the nation's largest-selling nonprescription daytime sedatives, is no more effective than a placebo in relieving "simple nervous tension." The pair base their report on a study of 166 patients with mild to moderate anxiety who were divided into four groups and given Compoz, aspirin, a placebo and the prescription tranquilizer chlordiazepoxide. Patients on Compoz reported more frequently observed side effects, including drowsiness, dizziness, confusion, dry mouth and nausea, than all except those taking the prescription drug.

>Just how much exercise is right for the cardiac patient? Faced with this question, doctors have searched for easy means for the patient to determine when his heart has exceeded a safe rate. A team of German researchers now appears to have found one. Physicist Hans Stephan and Drs. Hans Stoboy and Adalbert Schaede have developed a device called a Cardiomed that monitors the working heart and tells when it is not beating at the proper rate. Not much larger than a billfold, the battery-operated gadget checks on the heart through electrodes stuck on the chest. It emits a single beep whenever the heart rate falls below a predetermined lower limit, a double beep whenever it rises above a preset ceiling. Doctors who have experimented with the device (retail price: $280) find it particularly useful for getting their cardiac patients started on post-attack exercise programs.

>Although doctors are still uncertain as to the precise role of cholesterol in heart disease, many urge patients to try, through special dieting, to reduce the amount of the fatlike substance in their blood. That approach, however, may pose another hazard. A group of doctors from U.C.L.A. and the Veterans Administration Wadsworth Hospital in Los Angeles report in the New England Journal of Medicine that people on diets designed to reduce cholesterol levels are more likely to develop gallstones than those who eat normally. The researchers draw their conclusion from autopsy records of patients involved in a VArun trial of dietary prevention of heart disease. Their study showed that 33% of the men who followed the VA diet had stones in their gall bladders; only 14% of those in the control group developed stones. The doctors are unsure as to how the experimental diet increased the incidence of gallstones, nor are they recommending that such diets be abandoned. Few people die of gallstones; heart disease kills more than 700,000 Americans a year.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.