Melody Petersen
See book keywords and concepts |  A year later, the FDA pressed Wyeth to remove Redux and a similar diet drug called Pondimin from the market after doctors reported that they were injuring the heart valves of as many as a third of the patients who took them. By then millions of Americans had taken the drugs. The pills were later linked to dozens of deaths.
Scientists rely on a system of self-policing to prevent science from being turned into science fiction. Most scientific journals employ this safeguard, which is known as peer review. |
J. Douglas Bremner
See book keywords and concepts |  These people will keep going to doctors until they find one willing to write a prescription for a diet drug, and they usually don't have to search for long. Or, lured by the promise of near-magical weight loss, they pick up some ma huang or another dietary supplement at the drugstore.
It's not surprising that the diet-drug indusrry is robust; not only is the idea of easy weight loss appealing, but the National Institutes of Health recommend that most obese Americans should undergo drug treatment, which means that 100 million Americans could be on drugs for obesity. |
Dr. Vern Cherewatenko and Paul Perry
See book keywords and concepts |  I have found that a combination of lifestyle change with any diet drug will allow a person with type 2 diabetes to eliminate medication or greatly reduce the amount needed almost immediately.
Why Not Diet Drugs?
The notion that diet drugs—like HCA or any other type— have an effect on type 2 diabetes might be hard to believe. Aren't these drugs aimed at making you lose weight by eating less?
The answer is yes. Since the drugs make you lose weight, they have other effects on the human body as well. Several studies have shown the positive effects of diet drugs on type 2 diabetes. | | I have had the opportunity to see the effects of virtually every diet drug ever marketed on type 2 diabetes. I have found that a combination of lifestyle change with any diet drug will allow a person with type 2 diabetes to eliminate medication or greatly reduce the amount needed almost immediately.
Why Not Diet Drugs?
The notion that diet drugs—like HCA or any other type— have an effect on type 2 diabetes might be hard to believe. Aren't these drugs aimed at making you lose weight by eating less?
The answer is yes. |
Andreas Moritz
See book keywords and concepts |  Beware of the latest diet drug Orlistat, marketed under the name Alii and sanctioned by the FDA. This new wonder drug is actually a lower-dosage version of the old prescription drug Xenical, which has never shown to have any effects on fat reduction. Alii is the first drug of its kind sold without a prescription, and it is selling like hotcakes. But instead of enjoying a real hotcake, you may experience extremely unpleasant and embarrassing side effects, including gas with oily spotting, loose stools and abdominal pain. |
Fred A. Baughman, Jr., M.D. and Craig Hovey
See book keywords and concepts |  It hit the scene in a big way during the mid-90s, when Shire Pharmaceutical decided to overtake Ritalin with a product of its own and launched a multi-million dollar campaign to promote Adderall, a mix of amphetamine salts that had been a big money maker as a diet drug in years past but was taken off the market in the early 1980s because so many women became addicted to it (as we detailed in chapter two).
Despite its sordid history Adderall, like Dexedrine before it, made a comeback as an ADHD drug, too dangerous for dieting adults but perfectly okay for fidgety kids. |
American Medical Publishing
See book keywords and concepts | | Perhaps the best example of an extremely dangerous diet drug is the now infamous combination of two different drugs called "fen-phen." The "fen" in fen-phen refers to Pondimin (fenfluramine) and Redux (dexfenfluramine), both sold by the American drug company Wyeth-Ayert Laboratories. We'll talk about a variety of other dangerous diet drugs, both prescription and over-the-counter a bit later, but for now, the story of fen-phen will demonstrate not only the dangers of a specific diet drug, but also the the duplicity and double-dealing of a major drug company. |
Greg Critser
See book keywords and concepts |  But if a drug compound with tissue-toughening properties interferes too often, the pump strains, puts a heavier load on other heart and lung functions, and can even shut down from overwork.
The diet drug Redux was a grim case in point. Marketed by American Home Products (AHP), Redux worked by stimulating the release of the neurotransmitter serotonin, leading to appetite suppression. Unfortunately, Redux stimulated too much serotonin, and in the wrong organs — in the heart and in the lungs. |
Fred A. Baughman, Jr., M.D. and Craig Hovey
See book keywords and concepts | | Bear in mind from back in Chapter Two that Adderall was already taken off the market, under a different name, back in the 80s because of the dangers it displayed as a diet drug for adults. And now the latest manufacturer of the same amphetamine cocktail has the nerve to call stimulant treatment for children safe!
Below this statement, the next paragraph begins with, "It is believed that medications like Adderall-XR may help restore a chemical balance in the areas of the brain that control our ability to focus and pay attention to tasks. |
Jacky Law
See book keywords and concepts |  These are the things a company would try to affect when making a diet drug. In this purely pharmacological sense, our bodies can be seen as treasure chests of potential drug targets. The whole purpose of the pharmaceutical chemist is to tweak these biological mediators, which, in the case of obesity is to change in some basic way how food is translated first into energy, and then the excess into fat. The wonder of drugs is that they talk the same chemical language as our bodies, opening up or closing targets in the same way a key fits into a lock. |
Greg Critser
See book keywords and concepts | | The most intriguing and troubling of these are the SSRIs, which, because of their passing resemblance to Redux, the diet drug whose serotonin-releasing properties caused primary pulmonary hypertension, have fallen under recent scrutiny. There are, to be fair, very few cases of SSRI-induced fatalities from pulmonary failure. But there is a persistent pattern, and it has not, so far, received much attention from the health media.
The same can be said for a number of other drugs: there is no money for seemingly obscure drug-safety issues. But there are risks. |
Dr. Vern Cherewatenko and Paul Perry
See book keywords and concepts | | For example, a 1995 double-blind study in New Zealand found that insulin sensitivity was dramatically increased in patients taking dexfenfluramine, a popular diet drug. This insulin sensitivity increased after only one week of therapy and before any weight loss.
Other studies have had the same results. Repeated controlled studies have shown "improved glycemic control" among people with type 2 diabetes through the use of diet drugs. | | A Mayo Clinic study, for example, linked the diet drug fen-phen to heart disease in women, resulting in a warning against its use from the doctors who conducted the research. An article in a recent issue of Hospital Practice discussed the positive effects of diet drugs on type 2 diabetes, but then issued a warning to doctors who might consider prescribing them to patients. "Given the risks and caveats associated with anorectic drug therapy," the authors wrote, "one might wonder whether the potential benefits are worth the effort."
HCA, on the other hand, has no side effects. |
Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele
See book keywords and concepts |  The country's weight-loss programs, large and small, were swept up by the diet drug craze. Nutri-System Inc., one of the biggest and best known, converted nine of its Philadelphia-area offices to Nutri-RX Clinics that offered the fen-phen regimen and advertised two free months of the pills for dieters who switched from competitor Jenny Craig. Said Nutri-System's vice president of scientific affairs: "I don't believe it's another fad. I think you're seeing a new direction in the treatment of obesity. | | In May 1992, the journal Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics published the results of a diet drug study conducted by Dr. Michael Weintraub, a researcher at the University of Rochester School of Medicine. Weintraub's four-year clinical trial, funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, showed substantial weight loss by people who took the two drugs. Although each had been independently approved for weight loss years earlier by the FDA, the agency had never given its OK for their use in combination—meaning they were prescribed together off-label. |
Stephen Fried
See book keywords and concepts |  Eventually, however, the diet drug market would pop. In the summer of 1997, a major journal article from the Mayo Clinic would indict fen-phen in a series of twenty-four cases of drug-induced heart valve damage. And, one year after its glowing endorsement of Redux and pharmaceutical treatments for obesity, The New England journal would call for a moratorium on diet drug use "for cosmetic purposes" and a reconsideration of the logic of approving Redux in the first place. Sales of Redux and fen-phen quickly dropped 40 percent. |
Linda B. White, M.D.
See book keywords and concepts |  So if the companies spend millions of dollars to prove that their drugs are safe when taken as directed (though sometimes hazardous side effects are discovered only after FDA approval, as was the case with the diet drug Fen-phen). They also have to prove that their drugs actually work for each disorder they're prescribed for.
Herbs do not face such costly regulatory hurdles, so manufacturers can get their products to market quicker and more cheaply and pass their savings along to consumers. |
Isadore Rosenfeld, M.D.
See book keywords and concepts |  It will probably be at least five years before a new diet drug is available.
Here is what I recommend if you seriously want to lose weight. First, see your doctor for a thorough medical evaluation. Discuss with him or her how much of your objective is medically indicated, and how much is motivated by cosmetic goals. You will be screened for the various medical causes of obesity (for example, an underactive thyroid gland will sometimes do it). |
American Medical Publishing
See book keywords and concepts | | FEN-PHEN THE FAT KILLER ~ THE HUMAN KILLER
In case you have not heard of the prescription diet drug commonly known as fen-phen, the drug refers to the use in combination of fenfluramine and phentermine. The drugs used in combination were approved by the FDA many years ago as appetite suppressants for the short-term weight loss. Phentermine was approved in 1959 and fenfluramine in 1973.
But the combination of the two drugs, called fen-phen, was approved by the FDA in 1996 for use as an appetite suppressant. | | That's because the maker of fen-phen allegedly paid off a number of prestigious medical journals — the same respected medical publications whose job it is to keep us all safe — so that they would write and publish favorable articles about the deadly diet drug. A total of 10 articles were paid for, although only two were published. The other eight might have made it to print, but investigative journalist were getting nosy, and the remaining eight articles favorable to fen-phen, and downplaying its potential side effects were canned.
A drug company spokesman defended the articles. | | Some of the major diet drug killers on the market today are those that contain an herbal substance called ephedra. Ephedrine alkaloids in dietary supplements are usually derived from one of several species of herbs of the genus Ephedra, sometimes called Ma huang, Chinese Ephedra and epitonin. Other botanical sources include Sida cordifolia. Ephedrine alkaloids, as they are known, are amphetamine-like compounds with potentially powerful stimulant effects on the nervous system and heart. Hundreds of consumer illnesses and injuries associated with the use of these products have been reported. |
Janet Zand, LAc, OMD, Allan N. Spreed, MD, CNC, James B. LaValle, RPh, ND
See book keywords and concepts |  A newer diet drug, sibu-tramine (Meridia), has most of the side effects of its predecessors, and may have addictive properties.
¦ Surgery is sometimes used as a last resort for severe obesity that responds to no other measures. The procedures used include gastric banding, in which a portion of the stomach is stapled closed, and gastric bypass, which also decreases the stomach's capacity. Weight loss immediately following surgery can be impressive. However, long-term success is only in the 50-percent range. |
Dian Dincin Buchman, Ph.D.
See book keywords and concepts |  Water is nature's ideal "diet drug"—the more you take in, the better you feel. Reading the warning labels on some of our contemporary nostrums, I sometimes wonder if the side effects are worse than the medication's benefits. Water's side effects—better digestion, younger-looking skin, increased vigor—are hardly the kind you'll see on any warning label. Water helps the body to help itself lose weight—letting your body work at its optimal level:
• Water flushes out excess waste.
• Water helps to relieve constipation.
• Water keeps up the muscles' ability to contract, maintaining muscle tone. |
Attaining Medical Self SufficiencyDuncan Long
See book keywords and concepts | | The word went out of this danger in the medical community; the alternative health folks glossed their error over (much as the mainstream medical community has done with diet drug damage to patient's bodies). It's always wise to know the pros — and cons — of medication or supplements before popping them into your mouth.
You can also use medical search engines in the sites mentioned above for tracking down literature about supplements. By simply typing in the name of the vitamin or mineral in question, you can quickly discover what research has been done. |
Thomas J. Moore
See book keywords and concepts |  Or perhaps the diet drug Redux makes you jittery and easily angered. In some people, narcotics for pain trigger hallucinations or severe nausea and vomiting. These are dramatic, rapid-onset adverse effects and the drug is readily identified as the suspect. These side effects usually announce their presence even if you've never been briefed about the specifice adverse effects of the drugs you're taking. In a large majority of cases, these side effects can be eliminated entirely. An adjustment in dose or a switch to another drug often solves the problem—or at least minimizes it. |
Jonathan Goodman ND
See book keywords and concepts |  A vast number of Americans are overweight or obese, which explains why fad diets and, increasingly, weight-loss
ORLISTAT: THE NEW diet drug medications hold so much appeal. As anyone who has tried to lose weight already knows, dieting is hard. It requires giving up or restricting favorite foods, not just for months or years, but forever. The other part of the equation, daily exercise, can also be a burden, especially for those living in today's fast-paced, overworked society. Who wouldn't rather take a pill in order to achieve "guaranteed" weight loss? |
Stephen Fried
See book keywords and concepts | | And, one year after its glowing endorsement of Redux and pharmaceutical treatments for obesity, The New England journal would call for a moratorium on diet drug use "for cosmetic purposes" and a reconsideration of the logic of approving Redux in the first place. Sales of Redux and fen-phen quickly dropped 40 percent. Then the FDA received reports of 291 more patients, mostly women on fen-phen, with damaged aortic or mitral valves. The next day, fenfluramine and Redux would be removed from the market—the largest and most public new drug withdrawal since Omniflox in 1992. |
American Medical Publishing
See book keywords and concepts | | ANOTHER DANGER diet drug -- TRIAC
Dietary supplements that contain tiratricol, also known as triiodothyroacetic acid or TRIAC, a potent thyroid hormone that may cause serious health consequences including heart attacks and strokes. Despite four recalls over the past seven months, various products that contain tiratricol may still have reached consumers. FDA urges all consumers to stop using such products immediately.
On November 11, 1999, FDA warned the public against consuming Triax Metabolic Accelerator, a dietary supplement for weight loss by Syntrax Innovations, Inc., Cape Giradeau, Mo. |
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