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Viibryd Side Effects: Weight Loss or Weight Gain?

Viibryd Side Effects: Weight Loss or Weight Gain? The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recently approved Viibryd (vilazodone hydrochloride) to treat adults suffering from major depressive disorder.

As we usually do here at Health Care Zone, we’d like to focus on the side effects of this newly approved drug and this is what the FDA says about the matter: “The most frequent adverse reactions reported by patients taking Viibryd in clinical trials included diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, and insomnia… Viibryd and all other antidepressant drugs have a boxed warning and a patient medication guide describing the increased risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in children, adolescents, and young adults ages 18 to 24 during initial treatment.”

Viibryd, manufactured by PGxHealth in New Haven, Connecticut, will be made available in 10, 20 and 40 milligram tablets.

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Do Birth Control Pills Make You Fat?

Do birth control pills make women fat? We have some friends who claim that their use of this oral contraceptive made them fat but a new research study by a team from the Oregon National Primate Research Study Center suggests that their is no link between The Pill and weight gain.

However, we won’t blame you if you are skeptical of this particular research because the researchers actually focused on the effect of birth control pills on rhesus macaque monkeys rather than on human beings. Couldn’t they have designed a research method that actually had pill-taking women as subjects?

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Bath Salts’ Dangerous Effects to Your Health: Worse Than Cocaine?

Bath Salts’ Dangerous Effects to Your Health: Worse Than Cocaine? Are bath salts dangerous to your health? Well, it depends on whether you are talking about your regular bath salt which is safe or “bath salt” which contains Methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV) which, according to the San Francisco Examiner, can “cause hallucinations, paranoia, rapid heart rates and suicidal thoughts, leading to overdoses and possible death”.

According to law enforcement authorities, the MPDV-laced “bath salt” is actually cocaine masquerading as a “bath salt”.

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Animal to Human Disease Transmission: Can Sick Pets Infect You?

Animal to Human Disease Transmission: Can Sick Pets Infect You? Our health question of the day goes: Can pet owners catch diseases from their pets? The probability that you will be infected by your pet is pretty small but the answer is a big fat “Yes!”.

Bruno Chomel, professor of zoonoses at University of California Davis, says that animal-to-human disease transmission is extremely rare but the risk is there particularly for kids and those with a compromised immune system. Says Professor Chomel: “It can happen. It’s rare when it happens and it can be bad. It’s not told to panic people or scare people, but to be aware there are things that can happen.”

In an article Zoonoses in the Bedroom published in the February 2011 issue of the Centers for Disease Control journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, Professor Chomel and co-author Ben Sun identified 250 zoonotic diseases or infections which can be transmitted from animals to humans. Of said diseases, more than 100 can be transmitted by domestic pets.

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Semen Allergy: Do You Have Post Orgasmic Illness Syndrome or POIS?

Semen Allergy: Do You Have Post Orgasmic Illness Syndrome or POIS? Let’s add this to our file of weird health conditions. Did you know that some men can be allergic to their own semen? Strange, no? But some researchers from the Netherlands have recently confirmed that some unfortunate men out there really suffer from this condition.

They even have a cute name for it: POIS or post orgasmic illness syndrome.

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Acetaminophen Overdose Causes Liver Failure or Injury: FDA

Acetaminophen is effective in treating pain and fever but what happens when you take more than what is prescribed by your doctor? According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, acetaminophen overdose increases the risk of severe liver injury which could lead to liver transplant or death.

Says Sandra Kweder, M.D., deputy director of the Office of New Drugs in FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER): Continue reading “Acetaminophen Overdose Causes Liver Failure or Injury: FDA”