FDA Does Not Approve Medications to Prevent Age-Related Memory Loss
The FDA does not recognize age-related memory loss to be an illness and is hence unwilling to approve any medication to prevent or treat this condition. This attitude has worked against research development efforts for both pharmaceutical agents and alternative remedies, because no company will invest tens of millions of dollars in clinical research on a compound or natural substance if at the end of this effort there is no hope of regulatory approval. This situation has led to most studies of new medications being conducted in patients with Alzheimer’s, an FDA-recognized disease, rather than in people with mild memory loss.
Why Alternative Medications Vary in Quality and Content
The FDA requires pharmaceuticals, both prescription and over-the-counter, to be tested periodically to prove that their actual content lies within a 10 percent range of what is listed on the label: a 300 mg tablet must contain between 270 mg and 330 mg in serially tested batches, otherwise the manufacturer is forced to stop producing the medication. Such testing is not required for unregulated herbal, plant, or other alternative products sold in health food stores or similar outlets, which is why their content and quality, and hence their effectiveness and side effects, vary widely among different brands of the same product.
Taking Medications to Improve Memory: What to Ask Your Doctor
Why am I taking this particular medication?
How does this medication work on my memory?
How much improvement can I reasonably expect?
What is the right dose to take?
Does it interfere with any other medicines I am taking?
What are the common side effects?
How long do I need to take it?
Is the medicine addictive in any way?
Can I drink alcohol while taking it?
Is there any risk in stopping it for a few days at a time?
Most studies of treatments for mild memory loss have evaluated people over a few months or at most a year or two. If there is a slight improvement in memory functioning, will this effect be maintained ten, twenty years down the road? Also, will continuous long-term usage result in medication side effects that we did not see in the short-term? Although we don’t yet have the answers from long-term therapeutic trials, the research evidence from short-term to intermediate-term studies with a variety of medications is now sufficient to help build a sound program to prevent memory loss due to the aging process.
Taken From: The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss
and Enhance Memory Power
This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 at 3:08 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
