Prescription Diet Aids

Herbal Remedy for Weightloss Recalled for Containing Sibutramine

What is sibutramine?  It was the first time I had ever heard of it when I heard that an herbal weight loss remedy called Slim-30 was recalled because it was found to contain traces of this appetite suppressing drug.

Sibutramine is a medical grade, prescription appetite suppressant which can have certain side effects that may render it harmful if taken by people with pre existing health conditions, especially if they are taking it in an herbal product that they think only contains other certain naturally derived ingredients.

We have heard stories like this before, where herbal remedies or herbal supplements are supposed to be all natural appetite suppressants, and only contain untouched herbs and other natural vitamins and minerals, and it is found that they actually contain medical prescription ingredients.

This has happened a few times in the realm of male enhancement remedies which claim to be all natural. I think once that traces of prescription male enhancement drugs were found in a few herbal remedies for things like libido and male performance, and they were recalled as well.

The bad apples like that ruin it for all the legit herbal remedies that really only do contain ingredients that are on the label and that are natural, not putting clients well being at risk by putting drugs in them that may endanger their healthy or perhaps interact with other drugs they may already be taking.

That is the biggest danger of course, that and the fact that existing health conditions like high blood pressure or heart problems may be worsened if the prescription is taken unbeknownst to the customer.

Sibutramine is a prescription appetite suppressant that works on the appetite control centers of the brain, and it may have certain side effects and be dangerous for those with high blood pressure or heartbeat irregularities to take.

The company that distributes the Slim-30 product were very responsible in their recall of the product after it was found to contain the prescription medication, to props to them. No negative side effects or interactions were reported, so it looks like it was taken off the market in the nick of time.

New Prescription Weight Loss Meds Expected

Well, it looks like there may be some interesting prescription weight loss drug offerings brewing right now. That is, if they can pass the rigorous FDA scrutiny they are about to endure.  The FDA has been very careful about weight loss drugs in particular, especially after the Phen-Fen debacle, where there were even deaths correlated with the drug, and also since multiple other prescription weight loss drugs were either banned or made to put serious warning labels on them after they were associated with serious, and potentially life threatening side effects.

There has not been a  new weight loss drug released in several years, and part of it may be because companies know how hard it is to get one pushed through the FDA for approval to mass market, and they don’t want to waste the R&D time and money on developing new drugs for losing weight if the FDA is just going to shoot them down. That equals a lot of wasted time and money for drug companies.

Some of the drugs that are vying for approval actually sound quite promising. That is, if they don’t come with the nasty side effects that so many of their predecessors have been rife with.  One drug is an anti convulsant that is known to suppress the appetite.  Yikes, an anti convulsant drug, just to lose a few pounds!?  That one is actually Topomax, which is sold by Johnson and Johnson. I believe there is another one that is based on this idea that is going through approval now too.

One targets the center of the brain that controls appetite and metabolism, and is supposed to suppress the appetite while also helping to raise the metabolism.  Another drug vying for approval and the possibility of blockbuster sales is one that combines a drug used for addictions to alcohol and drugs, combined with an antidepressant. The idea behind this one is mostly to suppress hunger to reach the end goal of weight loss.

The projections for sales for any one of these new drugs would be phenomenal. People are hungry (no pun intended) for new prescription weight loss drugs like Xenical, which was one of the last ones approved, which helps you to get rid of excess fat via flushing it out of your system. Alli, it’s less potent sister drug which does not require a prescription, has also been a big seller, but people are looking for ways to lose weight that target appetite first.  Should be an interesting outcome!  I’ll keep you posted.

Liraglutide Diabetes Drug Helps Weight Loss

Boy, is this newer drug a tongue twister! Liraglutide (lee-rah-glue-tide) is actually a diabetes drug that is designed to help people control their blood sugar levels and keep them at more normal lows and keep the spikes down so that they can have a healthy blood sugar level. Now, new, more in depth studies, are showing the Liraglutide also helps people lose weight significantly more than the popular diet drugs called Alli and Orlistat.

Liraglutide, which was given to study participants once daily via injection, worked better in helping adults to lose weight than it’s actual weight loss counterparts of Orlistat (I believe this is also the same thing as Xenical, a popular prescription weight loss product) and Alli, however, it may not be marketed yet for the specific reason of weight loss until this can be further reviewed, and I’m sure FDA approved to be marketed as an actual weight loss drug instead of strictly as a diabetes drug.

The average weight loss per study participant on the Liraglutide drug was about ten pounds – not too shabby. This drug not only helped patients in the study lose weight more easily by regulating their blood sugar levels, but it also helped them to lower their blood pressure. Perhaps this was simply through the weight loss they achieved, as blood pressure typically goes down with weight loss, which is why doctors always recommend those that have extra pounds on them with high blood pressure lose as much weight as they can – it almost always helps with their blood pressure.

The only side effects that were reported using Liraglutide were occasional nausea and vomiting, however these side effects almost always subsided. The concern with this drug is really the injectable pice. Doctors and researchers aren’t so sure that an injectable medication would be the ideal answer to controlling weight long term, and the long term side effects aren’t known yet. For example, how do you know you may not be a prisoner to the drug after getting off it, without having sky high blood sugar afterwards because your body has grown accustomed to the benefits of having it lowered artificially?

Concerns like that will definitely need to be addressed before this can be considered for any sort of weight loss use, and also they will need to consider how they can give it without an injection I think, since it needs to be given every day. Currenlty the drug is available over in Europe to help patients with diabetes and prediabetes, no known date yet for US release.

Qnexa May Be New Diet Drug Sensation

Remember the Fen-Phen debacle? Well it seems that the one half of the Fen-Phen combo that wasn’t deemed to be the cause of apparent heart damage in some of the patients who were prescribed the infamous diet drug, is the new half of another new sensational diet drug that hasn’t hit market yet, but is still in clinical testing phases, called Qnexa.  So far the clinical trials of the drug have been promising as far as their implications in weight loss.

The tests have been done on about 750 patients, and of those, the ones that are on the higher doses of the Qnexa drug, which is a combination of the former diet half drug and the drug Topomax, have been demonstrated to consistently be losing more weight than their counterparts who are on a part-placebo and part drug combo.

The most common side effects of the potential new wonder drug for weight loss are the typical ones that are listed for most prescription diet drugs, which include but are not limited to dry mouth, constipation, loss of taste (foods tend not to taste as good on most effective diet drugs, that’s part of the idea I guess), and a new one to me, which is itching.

No comments on whether it causes irregular heart beats of rapid heart beat, which is a common side effect of many weight loss supplements since they contain stimulants that tend to have this effect.  We’ll keep you posted on where this diet drug is on the pike, and when it comes out, if it passes the FDA approval process.

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. 

Acomplia Now Also Linked to Anxiety, Depression

One of the newer weight loss drugs has some more bad news unfortunately for those that are overweight and hopeful that this diet product would be the answer to their weight and diet woes.  Before we reported that word on the “street” was that Acomplia was linked to it’s patients having suicidal thoughts, although in a statistically rather small portion of the patients. 

Now, new evidence is showing that patients taking the Acomplia diet drug are showing a doubling in the tendency toward anxiety and depression, which is not good news, especially considering that anxiety and depression are just as bad if not worse than having excess weight, so now patients must decide if the risk is worth the payoff (hopefully substantial weight loss).  Makes natural appetite suppressants pretty appealing, huh?

The study focused on patients taking the drug, and found that patients that were taking 20 milligrams or more of the diet and weightloss product were more than two times likely to stop treatment on the drug due to depression and anxiety cropping up to the point that it seemed unbearable.  This follows an advisory by a panel to not approve the diet drug after findings that it increased suicidal thoughts. 

Alli’s Selling Like Hotcakes!

The new over the counter version of the formerly only prescription diet pill called Xenical, Alli, has been selling better than the make of the diet pill had assumed, even thought the consequences of cheating on your diet while on Alli may be disastrous and more than just a little embarrassing. 

What I mean by this is that people are noting that part of their success on the diet pill is due to the fact they when they cheat, they pay with runny still and sometimes uncontrollable bowel movements.  The diet pill make even suggests that you try the drug first on a day off just in case you experience the side effect of loose stool or uncontrolled bowel movements, or taking a change of underwear and pants, or wearing darkly colored pants until you get used to it. 

Is it me, or does this seem like overkill?  Alli is supposed to block approximately 25% of the fat the enters your body in any given meal.  It does this by eliminating that fat through your stool, so logically, if you cheat and eat a fatty meal, you will have a big mess on your hands, your couch, or whatever you happen to be sitting or laying on at the time your body decides to expel the extra fat from having Alli in it. 

Health and fitness supplements for fat loss like herbal phentermine and others that help control the appetite like Hoodia gums and other hoodia products I think would be more the way to go.  I don’t know about you, but I would not like the idea that I could possibly lose control of my bowels if I even ate a little too much fat in my diet one day.  This could be extremely embarrassing. 

Some are looking at it as almost a training and reward type of learned behavior, since people tend to stay away from fat due to the new consequences the Alli diet pill may unleash, and that’s fine if it works for them, but I think there are healthier ways to go about losing weight.  Is anyone else also concerned about what a pill that can alter your elimination process like this could possibly do to your bowels long term?  Yikes…. 

Does Diet Drug Alli Have a Fatal Side Effect?

The diet drug Alli, which is causing the latest weight loss medication sensation in the news lately, is the nonprescription form of the prescription weight loss drug Xenical, which has been sold for some time under the name and has been rebirthed as a nonprescription strength drug that can help you lose weight. 

But the side effects most notoriously tied to Alli and Xenical are that you may suffer runny stools since it does not allow full absorption of fats, and also unpleasant gas and gastric pain.  Yeah, these are really unpleasant and embarrassing side effects, but are they actually harmful?  Well, one group does think so, and even goes so far as to say that Alli is linked to colon cancer, which can be a fatal disease as we all know. 

The consumer advocacy group claims that clinical trials on mice show that the diet drug had caused precancerous lesions in the colon.  They say that the FDA should have never approved the drug for over the counter use because there are really no studies that prove that over the long term this will not cause the same in humans that consume the diet drug. 

The drug actually expels excess fat consumed by the person who is taking the drug and that is the reason for the runny stool, because the excess fat has to go somewhere.  I remember the same side effect occurred with the Olestra fake fat that was on the market for a while, and I remember some pretty unpleasant side effects from that as well, it just didn’t feel natural, like you were sort of playing a dangerous game with your colon and digestive system by eating foods that are supposed to be absorbed by the body and are instead expelled through an unnatural process.  I would say a carb blocker would be a safer way to go if you’re concerned about losing weight and want to expel excess carbs from your body instead of fat. 

Acomplia Gets Rejected

The newer weight loss pill (prescription) that goes by the brand name of Acomplia but it’s drug name is Rimonabant, has been unanimously rejected for approval for use in the US by the panel the FDA uses to try to decide whether or not they want to approve a certain drug for sale and use here in the US.  Although the FDA is not required to follow the advisory panel’s advice, it usually does, and in this case since the decision was unanimous that the panel’s participants didn’t like what they heard, the FDA rejected the drug for sale in the US.

The reason for the unanimous decision was that the drug was shown to almost double the risk of suicidal thoughts, depression, anxiety and sleeplessness in it’s subjects.  Since the side effects are real and possible, the drug company recommende the way around such dangers was to screen potential patients of the drug for depression and anxiety prior to prescribing it.

The advisory panel decided this was not good enough though, and the potential for this serious side effect sounded too dangerous to allow for widespread sale here in the US. 

The bigger problem was that most of the patients who reported the mental problems while on the drug had absolutely no history of depression or related mental health issues.  Since the studies were done with half placebo and half on the drug, the findings were really significant, since these patients with no history of mental illness reported the issues. 

The weight loss pill has been shown to be effective for weight loss though, but the findings suggest that much more research on the drug’s effect on the mind is needed before the FDA can conscienably approve a drug that can have a significant effect on one’s psyche. 

Appetite Control Gum to Be Approved Soon?

The latest news in the never-ending world of weight loss and dieting aids, is the latest diet aid may be a chewing gum which helps the brain register fullness sooner than it normally would.