Diet Pill May Hinder Brain Development in Young
The latest blockbuster diet drug that actually went bust in the US and is only sold now in Europe, Rimonabant, otherwise known as Acomplia, has been pegged as having an effect on young mice who were studied in the lab (poor mice!) as having an effect on normal brain development during growth phases.
It was shown to inhibit their adaptability, so that the brain could not learn to adapt to certain situations as the individual mouse grew, as a normal youth would be able to. This is just another blow to the drug, although they never indicated that it should be used in children, and it is actually not even allowed to be prescribed for children currently where it is approved for use.
The drug works by suppressing the appetite by way of hindering the same chemical process by which people who smoke marijuana get hungry in the brain. However, the reason that the drug was not approved in the US is that it was demonstrated to cause some forms of psychiatric problems in the patients that it was given to in controlled studies – to the effect of 40%, which is of course totally unacceptable.
Most alarmingly was the reports of suicidal thoughts that accompanied the use of the drug, and this was unacceptable for the FDA to approve the drug. Just another reason to give a good herbal weight loss pills a try, right? It seems like a lot of these blockbuster pharmaceutical weight loss drugs just cause more problems than they’re worth, way more than outweighing (no pun intended) the health risks that excess weight brings.
Acomplia is set to come back out as a treatment for type II diabetes in 2009, but it is unclear whether they are trying to reformulate the product at all to make it safer for human consumption and reduce the potentially life threatening side effects of suicidal thoughts.
