If you’re considering taking a weight loss medication I’d strongly advise you to do your own homework before simply accepting the okay from your doctor. Sadly enough far too many doctors hand out free samples with a “why not give it a try” attitude. How half of the medications get approved by the FDA is beyond me. When you see some of the severe side effects it will definitely make you think twice. Here’s a quick review of the most popular weight loss medications.
Meridia (sibutramine)
How it works: by extending the amount of time that the brain chemicals serotonin and norepineprhine are available to the brain’s appetite control control, Meridia boosts feelings of fullness and satiety. Basically it helps you feel full by messing with the neurotransmitters in your brain. The idea is that if you feel full you’ll less calories and thus lose weight.
Possible side effects:Â elevated blood pressure and heart rate, dry mouth, constipation, headaches
Fastin (phentermine)
How it works: the drug phentermine (also under brand names like Adipex-P, lonamin, etc) works by regulating serotonin and norepinephrine, much like sibutramine (Medrida) does.
The difference is phentermine floods the brain with more of these neurotransmitters rather than just prolonging the exposure time. Back in the 1990′s, doctors prescribed the popular diet pill Redux which had the combination of phentermine and fenfluramine (called “phen-fen”). However as you probably remember it was abruptly pulled from the shelf in 1997Â because of the damage it was causing to heart valves. Phentermine by itself made it through and is still available for prescription.
Possible side effects: while the FDA limits phentermine use to just eight weeks, according to the PDR Family Guide to Prescription Drugs, its effectiveness can diminish in half that time. Can you you say receptors shutting down? This is obviously the case.
The problem is phentermine can cause dependency (surprise, surprise since you’re messing with “feel good” neurotransmitters in your brain). This is quite common as people will increase the dose in an effort to retain its effectiveness- having no clue it’s not working anymore becasue the cell receptors have shut down.
Also like Meridia, phentermine can cause an elevated heart rate and high blood pressure.
Xenical (orlistat)
How it works: Xenical prevents enzymes in your digestive system from breaking down fat molecules so fats are eliminated from the body undigested. It works by simply blocking fat absorption and shuttling it right out of your body. The problem is your body needs fat as an essential nutrient for numerous hormonal functions. The drug doesn’t distinguish between “good” and “bad” fat, it blocks both from being absorbed and eliminates them. This is not a real good idea.
Possible side effects: by nature of how the drug works you can suspect that there will be some nasty side effects and you’re right. Users of Xenical commonly report severe diarrhea, abdominal pain, and get this- anal leakage and oily stools. Who wants to take something that could make you uncontrollably soil your drawers? I’ll pass on that one, thank you.
Wellbutrin (bupropion)
How it works: the drug Wellbutrin is actually prescribed as an anti-depressant but I had to include it in this list as it’s without a doubt one of the most popular weight loss drug. Wellbutrin works by boosting the availability of appetite suppressing chemicals dopamine and norepinephrine to the brain. While most anti-depressants cause weight gain, Wellbutrin does the exact opposite. You’ll want to hold up though until you see the side effects.
Possible side effects: users of Wellbutrin commonly report extreme agitation, anxiety, sleep loss, feeling spaced out, and other cognitive disturbances. How this is supposed to help with depression, I don’t know? Doesn’t sound like a lot of fun to me.
Bottom Line…
While I could write for hours on all the weight loss drugs, I wanted to pick the most common that I’m asked about and give you my opinion. And it’s just that my opinion. All I wanted to get across is please take the time to do careful research on your own before just jumping on some weight loss medication.
Just because your doctor will kick you some free sample packs doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a good idea. Only you are responsible for your health and what you stick in your body, nobody else.
Weight loss medication is BIG business and it’s not going away anytime soon. There will continue to be more and more drugs released that promise the “solution” to people’s weight problems. I don’t think it will ever be that simple where one pill can fix everything.
Getting your body to burn stored fat (lipolysis) involves a lot of hormonal functions and requires the right mix of energy in-energy out. There’s just too much going on for one pill to regulate that many hormonal functions.
The best strategy has always been…and always will be…to work on increasing energy demand through cardio and resistance exercise along with eating whole, natural foods in the right amounts, at the right time to stabilize hormone levels, and increase your metabolism.
Shane Doll is a certified Charleston personal trainer, fat loss expert, speaker, and fouder of Shaping Concepts Personal Training Studios. You can test drive his Charleston peronsal training programsfor FREE with a no-obigations two session trial. Shane is available for thoughtful and candid interviews along with article submission on fat loss and fitness related topics.
Posted:
Thursday, October 1st, 2009 at 8:05 am
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Category:
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