PPH and Fen-Phen Research Ongoing

Sacramento, CAFor years, Primary Pulmonary Hypertension (PPH) was a medical mystery. Scientists studied it for over 100 years before formally categorizing it as a disease, and even today the medical community is divided as to whether PPH is the result of a single factor or many. But one thing is certain: Fen-Phen and other appetite suppressants are known to trigger the narrowing of the pulmonary artery.


PPH increases blood pressure in the pulmonary artery and pushes oxygen-poor blood from the heart to the lungs. Although the disease is rare, it is 100 times more likely to occur among former users of Fen-Phen and other fenfluramine drugs like Redux and Pondimin. Pondimin and Redux were withdrawn from the market in September of 1997 after they were conclusively linked to PPH and vascular heart disease. Yet new cases are still emerging, as PPH often becomes apparent 10 to 20 years after discontinuation of diet drug use.

Early diagnosis is difficult for another reason, as well: overweight Fen-Phen users often attribute their shortness of breath to their weight problem rather than pulmonary hypertension.

PPH Research

Over the past decade there have been advancements in treating PPH, a disease that was originally believed to be incurable. Hank Harrison, a medical writer for PPH researchers at the University of California at Davis, suffers from PPH himself. "Luckily for me there is lots of PPH/PAH research going on here," says Harrison. He explains that there has been a great deal of misunderstanding about this disease until recently. "The latest claim is that the syndrome derives from one source and that all the other diagnostic variations are really minor differences in environment, genetics, or preexisting conditions such as smoking, drug abuse, asthma, industrial exposure, etc., and in my case, Fen-Phen."

According to this new research, the underlying precondition common to all PPH is a genetic marker that begins in utero. "The idea now is that when the baby is first born and takes its first breath a 'pattern' is set," says Harrison. "After that, if the pattern is interfered with by any toxin such as Fen-Phen, it can take a lethal path because the lung capillaries tend to trigger back to the infantile state.

"From my viewpoint, this is good news because it is leading to different kinds of clinical adjustments and there are new treatments and modalities. Instead of doctors arguing amongst themselves whether PPH is an individual disease or a different group, now they are saying it is one thing underlying other syndromes."

Harrison's doctors ran the entire diagnostic gamut, from CAT scans to heart catheterizations. "They didn't find plaque but I have left atrial leakage, which does not qualify me for the big pay-off," he says. "Other than PPH I am healthy as a hog—I'm 70 years old and feel 55. I never smoked, always lived a healthy lifestyle and didn't hurt my body, but I am overweight. Today I am having an 'A' day but sometimes I get into 'D' level and have no energy--thanks to Fen-Phen."