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By Kellie Rowe | Originally Published: 3 hours ago |Modified: 2 hours ago |

This year, instead of giving up the usual temptations for Lent — candy, sweets and pop — interior design junior Amanda Devera is striving for more.

“They’re my weakness,” she said. “But I think this year, I decided to not give something up … and (instead) go to church more.”

Devera is one of many students who observed Ash Wednesday yesterday, which marks the beginning of Lent. Episcopalians, Roman Catholics and Lutherans observe the 40-day period, excluding Sundays, before Easter, and often give up a favorite item as a form of penitence.

Devera attended one of six ceremonies held at St. John Catholic Church and Student Center, 327 M.A.C. Ave., to observe Ash Wednesday.

During the 3 p.m. service, as voices rang through the center’s vaulted ceilings, more than 450 attendees were marked with ash crosses on their foreheads.

Pastor Mark Inglot said the ash ceremony is performed using the ashes of burned palms, which were used on Palm Sunday.

As one of many wearing the sign of the cross on her forehead, medical student Tina Gwinn said for her, Ash Wednesday services are nothing new, as she has been going for at least 20 years.

Gwinn said she feels attending Ash Wednesday is part of recognizing her Catholic beliefs.

“It means upholding your faith and following what you were brought up to be,” she said.

Inglot said he notices a dramatic increase in attendance at the church’s services on Ash Wednesday, especially by students.

“What happens here at Ash Wednesday as a student parish is absolutely remarkable,” he said. “It gives me hope for the future.”

Pastor Dave Dressel of Martin Luther Chapel, 444 Abbot Road, which also held Ash Wednesday services, said the ashes represent important ideas in the Bible.

“In Scripture, it talks about people using dust and ashes on themselves as a symbol of their own repentance and sinfulness before God,” he said. “(The ashes are) a symbol that we will die, and that’s just part of our human nature that we‘re limited like that.”

The chapel also held a service for students at the MSU Alumni Memorial Chapel, with more than 50 in attendance.

“Oftentimes, younger people don’t think as much about their mortality,” he said. “Usually (because they know) there’s a whole life ahead of them.”

Although Devera said she has lacked the motivation and time to attend church before, she said she’s sticking firm to her goal.

“Now that I know a bunch of people who go here that go to school too, I’ll probably (be) more likely to drag them with me … so I won’t forget to do it,” she said.

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By Kellie Rowe | Originally Published: 3 hours ago |Modified: 2 hours ago |

This year, instead of giving up the usual temptations for Lent — candy, sweets and pop — interior design junior Amanda Devera is striving for more.

“They’re my weakness,” she said. “But I think this year, I decided to not give something up … and (instead) go to church more.”

Devera is one of many students who observed Ash Wednesday yesterday, which marks the beginning of Lent. Episcopalians, Roman Catholics and Lutherans observe the 40-day period, excluding Sundays, before Easter, and often give up a favorite item as a form of penitence.

Devera attended one of six ceremonies held at St. John Catholic Church and Student Center, 327 M.A.C. Ave., to observe Ash Wednesday.

During the 3 p.m. service, as voices rang through the center’s vaulted ceilings, more than 450 attendees were marked with ash crosses on their foreheads.

Pastor Mark Inglot said the ash ceremony is performed using the ashes of burned palms, which were used on Palm Sunday.

As one of many wearing the sign of the cross on her forehead, medical student Tina Gwinn said for her, Ash Wednesday services are nothing new, as she has been going for at least 20 years.

Gwinn said she feels attending Ash Wednesday is part of recognizing her Catholic beliefs.

“It means upholding your faith and following what you were brought up to be,” she said.

Inglot said he notices a dramatic increase in attendance at the church’s services on Ash Wednesday, especially by students.

“What happens here at Ash Wednesday as a student parish is absolutely remarkable,” he said. “It gives me hope for the future.”

Pastor Dave Dressel of Martin Luther Chapel, 444 Abbot Road, which also held Ash Wednesday services, said the ashes represent important ideas in the Bible.

“In Scripture, it talks about people using dust and ashes on themselves as a symbol of their own repentance and sinfulness before God,” he said. “(The ashes are) a symbol that we will die, and that’s just part of our human nature that we‘re limited like that.”

The chapel also held a service for students at the MSU Alumni Memorial Chapel, with more than 50 in attendance.

“Oftentimes, younger people don’t think as much about their mortality,” he said. “Usually (because they know) there’s a whole life ahead of them.”

Although Devera said she has lacked the motivation and time to attend church before, she said she’s sticking firm to her goal.

“Now that I know a bunch of people who go here that go to school too, I’ll probably (be) more likely to drag them with me … so I won’t forget to do it,” she said.

Possibly related:
More in City:

February 23, 2012, 12:33 AM EST

By Anna Edney

(Updates with after-market trading in fifth paragraph.)

Feb. 22 (Bloomberg) — Vivus Inc.’s weight-loss pill Qnexa won the backing of a U.S. advisory panel as the company seeks to gain approval for the first new obesity drug in 13 years. The shares doubled in late trading.

Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration voted 20-2 today that Qnexa’s benefits outweigh its risks at a meeting at agency headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland. The FDA isn’t required to follow the panel’s recommendation. The agency is due to decide on the drug, which it rejected in 2010, by April 17.

Qnexa is one of three medications vying for the first U.S. approval of a prescription weight-loss treatment since Swiss drugmaker Roche Holding AG’s Xenical in 1999. The FDA plans to have advisers discuss in March the possibility of requiring heart-risk studies for all weight-loss drugs. Panel members discussed whether Vivus should conduct such a study before or after approval.

“Of all the obesity drugs, this one has the highest efficacy in terms of weight loss, so that shifts the balance in terms of requiring a post-approval study rather than a pre- approval study,” said Sanjay Kaul, a cardiology professor in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA Cedar Sinai Medical Center and a panel member.

Vivus surged $10.55 to $21.10 at 6:58 p.m. New York time. Trading in the stock was halted during the day before the FDA panel vote.

Heart Risk Concerns

Regulators raised concerns that Qnexa may contribute to a greater risk of heart ailments and birth defects. The medicine combines the appetite suppressant phentermine with topiramate, an antiseizure and migraine drug. The Mountain View, California- based company has proposed a post-approval trial to assess Qnexa in reducing major heart complications in obese, at-risk patients. The trial would involve 11,300 patients and take four and a-half years.

Analysts say the drug, if approved, may generate $448 million in sales in 2015.

Topiramate is the active ingredient in Johnson & Johnson’s Topamax. The anticonvulsant is also associated with confusion, difficulty with concentration and memory loss.

Vivus’ analysis of heart risks for Qnexa was “somewhat reassuring,” though the significance of an observed increase in heart rate was “uncertain,” FDA staff said Feb. 17 in a report.

More than one-third of U.S. adults are obese, and another third are overweight, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The obesity rate among adults has more than doubled since 1980 to 72 million people.

Obesity Risks

Obesity raises the risks of diabetes, heart attacks and stroke, and costs the U.S. economy an estimated $147 billion a year in medical expenses and lost productivity, according to the Atlanta-based CDC.

Orexigen Therapeutics Inc., based in La Jolla, California, and San Diego-based Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc. also are seeking approval for their obesity medicines, which the FDA refused to approve without more data on safety risks.

Vivus examined medical claims data and found five oral clefts in a group of 1,740 children whose mothers had taken topiramate alone in the first trimester of pregnancy, for a prevalence rate of 0.29 percent, the company said Dec. 21 in a statement. That compared with a rate of 0.16 percent in the group whose mothers had taken antiseizure drugs, including topiramate, before pregnancy.

Study Results

Vivus plans to finish the results in the third quarter of this year, after the April 17 deadline for the FDA to decide whether to approve the drug. The risk of oral clefts hasn’t been fully answered by the interim data, FDA staff said.

The FDA asked Vivus in January to remove wording from Qnexa’s proposed prescribing label advising women with the potential to become pregnant against taking it. The FDA staff said in the Feb. 17 report severely restricting Qnexa isn’t practical because topiramate also treats other serious conditions.

Panel members suggested the FDA should consider restricting topiramate used for seizures and migraines for women of childbearing age.

“I just can’t get my mind around why it would be different,” said Lamont Weide, chief of diabetes and endocrinology at the Truman Medical Centers Diabetes Center in Kansas City and a member of the panel.

Russell Katz, director of FDA’s neurology products division, said the agency hasn’t considered restricting the drug because there aren’t many options for migraine prevention.

Vivus has suggested restricting distribution of Qnexa to less than 10 large mail-order pharmacies with pharmacists trained in dispensing the drug, Barbara Troupin, senior director of global medical affairs at the company, said.

In addition to Roche’s Xenical, London-based GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s Alli, a half-dose version of Xenical’s active ingredient, won FDA clearance in 2007 as the first diet drug available without a prescription.

–Editors: Andrew Pollack, Angela Zimm

To contact the reporter on this story: Anna Edney in Washington at aedney@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Adriel Bettelheim at abettelheim@bloomberg.net

1:00 AM

ROME (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI rode on a motorized cart in an Ash Wednesday procession, forsaking the traditional short walk between two Rome churches as the 84-year-old pontiff tries to conserve his energy.

click image to enlarge

The Rev. Francis Morin places ashes on a person’s forehead during an Ash Wednesday mass held over the lunch hour at St. Mary Church in Augusta. Ash Wednesday is the beginning of the Christian time of Lent, the forty days leading up to Easter Sunday. This year Western Christian churches will celebrate Easter on April 8 while the Orthodox churches have it the following Sunday April 15.

Staff photo by Joe Phelan

The pope wore an ermine-trimmed crimson cape to protect him from the chilly, early evening air as he stood in the cart during the brief procession atop the Aventine Hill, between St. Anselmo Church and the Basilica of Santa Sabina. The white vehicle resembled a kind of mini popemobile he uses on trips and to get around the vast expanse of St. Peter’s Square.

But Benedict walked briskly and unassisted into and out of the basilica, where he led a solemn service to mark the start of the Lenten season of penitence, including the placement of ashes on the forehead of faithful. He wore purple-colored vestments as he celebrated Mass in the ancient basilica.

Benedict has been using a different wheeled platform to navigate the long aisle of St. Peter’s Basilica to reduce wear and tear.

In his homily, he noted that Ash Wednesday is a “day of penitence and fasting.” Lent helps spiritually prepare Roman Catholics for Easter, which this year falls on April 8.

Benedict rubbed ashes on the foreheads of some faithful, as they approached him one by one, to symbolize mortality.