Phenylpropanolamine: An Update

We have come to know very well the drug Phenylpropanolamine as it is a popular medication that doctors give for decongested noses. But it has a history that most people do not know, a history that supposedly have been improved but never known publicly.

SCIENTIFIC studies in 1988, 1999 and 2000 agreed that there is a risk for hemorrhagic stroke among women who used phenylpropanolamine (PPA).

The 1999 study came from the Yale University (New Haven, Connecticut). And the one in 2000 was conducted by a team that WN Kernan led and published in the December 2000 issue of the North England Journal of Medicine, a publication of the Massachusetts Medical Society. The 1988 study was a psychiatric review of 37 cases published in North America and Europe since 1960. In this study that the Lake-Masson-Quirk team published in Pharmacopsychiatry (July 1988), it was noted that ingestion of phenylpropanolamine had resulted in diagnosed cases of acute mania, paranoid schizophrenia and organic psychosis. These are serious psychological problems.

The interesting thing is these diagnoses came from not recognizing the symptoms arising from the intake of PPA. And these diagnoses resulted to lengthy hospitalization and treatment with therapeutic doses of lithium drugs.

No wonder PPA, and any formulations containing it, was banned in India on Feb. 10, 2011. Based on the report of the Drugs Technical Advisory Board, Dr. Surinder Singh (Drug Controller General of India) noted that the adverse effects outweigh the benefits. And so far, there had been no news that it had been lifted there.

In the United States, it is no longer sold without a prescription. In Canada, it had been withdrawn from the market on May 31, 2001. In Europe and still a few countries like the Philippines it remains an over-the-counter (OTC) drug.

This information alarmed me for two reasons. First, it has never been... [READ MORE]

This article appears in SunStar Cebu newspaper on 06 February 2013.

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