fen-phen

Or fen/phen

[fen-fen]

noun

Pharmacology.

1. a drug that is a combination of fenfluramine and phentermine, formerly used in treating obesity but withdrawn from the market because of its potential to cause valvular heart disease.

Word History and Origins

Origin of fen-phen¹

First recorded in 1990–95

Example Sentences

Safety problems in the 1990s with the anti-obesity treatment known as fen-phen, which had to be withdrawn from the market, were also fresh in their minds.

Read more on Seattle Times

Compared with fen-phen, a popular weight-loss drug in the 1990s that was eventually linked to heart-valve problems, doctors are less concerned about semaglutide, because older drugs in its class have been used to treat diabetes for nearly two decades.

Read more on New York Times

The ban was implemented in part because of concerns over the safety of weight-loss drugs at the time, such as the combination of fenfluramine and phentermine, or fen-phen, which was associated with life-threatening hypertension and heart valve issues.

Read more on Scientific American

For example, the popular diet drug of the 1980s and 90s was fen-phen, which contained appetite suppressants fenfluramine and phentermine.

Read more on Salon

But after users experienced heart valve and lung disease, fen-phen was withdrawn from the market in 1997.

Read more on Salon