Prescription Diet Pills

From LoveToKnow Diet

Prescription diet pills are not new; several of them have been around for many years. In addition, there are many new drugs on the market that promise to make the weight-loss process easy. It's important to know the facts before deciding to use a prescription weight-loss drug.

How Prescription Diet Pills Work

There are various forms of prescription diet drugs, most of them appetite suppressants. Suppressors regulate the amounts of certain hormones in the body in an effort to inhibit appetite. Other types of drugs, called lipase inhibitors, act on the digestive system to block the absorption of fat. Some anti-depressants and anti-convulsants are also used in certain cases to aid weight reduction efforts.

It's important to realize that no diet drug can work miracles on its own. Only when combined with a reduced-calorie and/or reduced fat diet, increased exercise, and other healthy habits, do these drugs enhance the weight loss effort.

Orlistat

Marketed as Xenical, this prescription drug is a lipase inhibitor that prevents the absorption of about one-third of ingested fats. There are certain contraindications for this medication, including:

allergies to medications, foods, or dyes
taking any other medication, especially other weight-loss drugs or cyclosporine
pregnancy or plans to become pregnant
eating disorders

Orlistat must be taken while the person is following a low-fat diet. You may experience very unpleasant side effects if you eat a high-fat meal while taking this drug.

Sibutramine

Marketed as Meridia, this drug is an appetite suppressant that also provides a sense of satiation, or fullness. Contraindications for this medication include:

taking MAOI medications
taking other weight-loss drugs that affect the brain
having high-blood pressure or major organ disease (liver, kidney, heart)
pregnancy or plans to become pregnant
eating disorders

Meridia can raise your blood pressure and your heart rate, so it's crucial that your doctor monitor your health carefully while you are taking this drug.

Other Appetite Suppressants

The following diet-drugs have been approved for use only as short-term appetite suppressants, primarily because of the risk of various side effects:

Phentermine
Phendimetrazine
Benzphetamine
Diethylpropion

The following anti-depressants have also been studied as possible diet-drugs, though most have not yet been approved for that use.

Fluoxetine (Prozac)
Sertraline (Zoloft)
Bupropion (Wellbutrin)

And the following drugs also show some weight-loss effects, and are in the process of being studied for possible approval in this treatment area.

Topiramate (Topamax), an anti-convulsant
Zonisamide (Zonegran), an anti-convulsant
Glucophage (Metformin), a glucose-regulating drug used to treat Type II diabetes
Axokine, a drug in development for treatment of ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease), which showed promise in its action on the leptin pathway -- leptin is a hormone that signals your brain that you have eaten enough. There are concerns over side-effects with this drug, but it is undergoing testing and clinical trials in hopes of attaining FDA approval.

Drawbacks of Prescription Drugs for Weight Loss

Prescription diet pills are usually not covered by health insurance, and they are quite costly, so there are financial considerations that affect their usefulness. Furthermore, while these often are made to sound like "miracle pills," the truth is that the weight-loss achieved while using them is quite minimal -- 9 to 10 percent of starting weight over the course of one year. That's an average of only two or three pounds per month for most users.

Of more concern, though, is the potential of dangerous side-effects. The wildly popular prescription diet pills Redux, Pondimin, and Fen-Phen illustrate the dangers of using drugs -- even prescribed drugs -- to control weight. Available for only 18 months, these drugs were prescribed more than 10 million times. They were pulled from the market when people began reporting serious heart problems associated with their use. To this day, almost a full decade later, there are people who are suffering from the irreversible side-effects from using these drugs.

Concerns

Prescription diet pills are not new, but neither are they the preferred form of treatment for mild obesity. Diet and exercise are a far better option for the vast majority of persons who have less than 100 pounds to lose. Only those whose obesity is extreme, or who are in imminent danger of serious health consequences, should really be using drugs to help their weight loss. And any use of diet drugs should be carefully monitored by a licensed physician.