Medical Edge: Pill for sexual desire, is it effective?

CINCINNATI (Liz Bonis) - There is new controversy today about the "Little Pink Pill" for women.

A study released said the benefits may not be worth the risks. The study in the Journal of the American Medical Association examined dozens of studies to draw these conclusions but many were unfinished or unpublished. The experts at UC Health say this may have to do with a bias against younger women; that a drop in desire is a real disorder.

The Little Pink Pill, or flibanserin, is for younger women before menopause. It is the only pill without hormones approved by the Food and Drug Administration for what's called hypoactive sexual desire disorder, or HSDD. The condition doesn't have any other medications on the market right now approved to treat it. So as people might imagine, the study raised controversy among heath care providers who've used it to treat women. Part of the problem they said was simply awareness and education.

Dr. Lisa Larkin specializes in women's health. She says about three of four patient she's treated with it are still on the medication because they respond to it well. The review of studies promoting the controversy, she says, looked at studies not all published with doses not approved for use of the medication. She thinks the controversy is about whether HSDD is a real condition.

The study questions safety with side effects but Dr. Larkin says those side effects which include low blood pressure, and nausea are not worse than many other medications used appropriately such as anti-depressants. There was also a question as to whether or not the condition was life threatening. Some would argue not all men's sexual health problems are life threatening and we have at least 24 medications for this in guys on the market.

The drug was approved for use in August 2015 and has been available for women since October.