RECALL OF 2 DIET PILLS BREAKS UP FEN-PHEN.

Byline: Ben Sullivan Daily News Staff Writer

Two wildly popular diet pills were pulled from the market Monday after researchers found new evidence that the drugs could literally break patients' hearts.

The Food and Drug Administration recommended that anyone now using Redux, known chemically as dexfenfluramine, or Pondimin, known chemically as fenfluramine, stop taking the drugs and contact their doctors.

Fenfluramine is half of the popular diet drug combination called fen-phen. The other half, phentermine, is not affected by the withdrawal.

The FDA asked the makers of the two drugs to pull their products after finding that in a sample of 291 patients on the pills, nearly a third had abnormal heart functions.

In particular they found that the opening and closing of the patients' heart valves were not synchronized, causing blood to leak into one or more of the heart chambers during each heartbeat.

``Leaking valves are very common, but this is a particular type of heart valve problem,'' said Dr. Anthony Chandraratna, director of endocardiography at Los Angeles County/USC Medical Center. ``If it was just a leaking valve it'd have been tough to link it to these drugs.''

The FDA-studied patients were in addition to 99 other fenfluramine or Redux users whose doctors have reported to government officials actual symptoms of heart damage, such as shortness of breath, chest pain or swollen ankles. Three of those patients died, and 17 underwent heart surgery.

The latest findings show the drugs ``present an unacceptable risk,'' said FDA Acting Commissioner Dr. Michael Friedman.

Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories, which sells Redux and whose parent company makes Pondimin, immediately agreed to withdraw the drugs. But a spokesman for the company said there is still no definitive proof that the drugs are to blame, and said Wyeth-Ayerst will begin studying whether obese people are naturally more prone to valve disease.

The recall is only the latest in a series of recent blows to the cottage fen-phen diet industry. In July, researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota first reported a possible link between fenfluramine and heart valve problems. And earlier this month the state of Florida banned prescriptions of the fen-phen combination.

Those events took a toll on local diet clinics that Monday's news amplified.

Dr. Mal Martin, who operates clinics in West Hills and San Fernando, said since results of the Mayo Clinic study were announced in July he has seen a 50 percent drop in telephone inquiries.

``It's definitely hurt business significantly; there's been a major drop-off,'' Martin said.

Martin likened the emergence of fen-phen on the U.S. diet industry to that of the Beatles on the American music scene in the 1960s. ``It was like a monster, No. 1 song, or like Fernando Valenzuela'' when the pitcher first joined the Los Angeles Dodgers.

But like Valenzuela, he said, as soon as the drug combination showed problems, ``everyone couldn't wait to tear it down. . . . Now the beast is slayed.''

Some local clinics said they would continue to prescribe the second half of fen-phen - phentermine - to patients in combination with other drugs, including the anti-depressant Prozac, and nutritional supplements thought to mimic fenfluramine's effect on appetite.

Colleen Phillips, a nutritionist who runs the Diet Doctors Medical Center in Canoga Park, said her staff physicians now will prescribe over-the-counter amino acids in place of the recalled drug. Like Martin, Phillips said after the Mayo Clinic study she saw a significant drop in business.

``We've always been busy, but when fen-phen (first) hit our waiting room was jammed, people were lined up in the hallway, we had to add a dozen employees,'' Phillips said. ``Everybody was looking for a miracle.''

If there is a silver lining to Monday's recall, said J.P. Smith, a spokesman for the American Society of Bariatric Physicians, it is that dieters will now be reminded that weight loss requires more than popping pills.

``It takes a combination of diet, nutrition, exercise, behavior modification'' and, in some cases, medicine to effectively lose and keep weight off, Smith said.

``There's no magic bullet,'' he said.

News of Monday's recall prompted a sell-off of the drug makers' stocks. Shares of Wyeth-Ayerst's parent company, American Home Products, fell 4.8 percent, or $3 11/16, to $73-1/4 on the New York Stock Exchange. Stock for Interneuron Pharmaceuticals Inc., which makes Redux through an agreement with Wyeth-Ayerst, fell $1 11/16 to $16 -7/8 on the Nasdaq exchange, a drop of 9.1 percent.