J. Douglas Bremner
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 Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, assessed the risk of getting PPH following treatment with diet pills. She found that there is a sixfold increase in the risk of PPH with diet pills. Pills that were included in this assessment of risk were dexfenfluramine, fenfluramine, diethylpropion, clobenzorek, fenproporek, phemetrazine, and other compounds. Patients taking diet pills for more than three months face a twenty-threefold increased risk. |
Jonny Bowden, M.A., C.N.S.
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 The new "ephedra-free" diet pills have simply replaced ephedra with citrus aurantium (bitter orange), which has many of the same fat-burning/appetite-suppressing effects but doesn't yet have the bad rap. (See next question.) If you do use ephedra, make sure you do not fit in any of the categories mentioned above, and never take more than the recommended dosage.
What About Over-the-Counter "Ephedra-Free" diet pills?
The new "ephedra-free" diet pills have simply replaced ephedra with bitter orange (citrus aurantium), an herb that contains the active ingredient synephrine. |
C. W. Randolph, M.D.
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 I am almost at the point of considering diet pills. Also, my doctor on the West Coast had put me on antidepressants, but my prescription has expired. Please help me.
Sylvia's age, weight gain, and mild depression were common indicators of an underlying hormonal imbalance, specifically estrogen dominance. I told Sylvia that I could help her without diet pills or antidepressants. After following the plan for six weeks, she walked into the office a changed woman. She had lost nine pounds and an inch and a half from her waist. |
J. Douglas Bremner
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| She found that there is a sixfold increase in the risk of PPH with diet pills. Pills that were included in this assessment of risk were dexfenfluramine, fenfluramine, diethylpropion, clobenzorek, fenproporek, phemetrazine, and other compounds. Patients taking diet pills for more than three months face a twenty-threefold increased risk. Although PPH is rare, so that the absolute risk of developing this disorder remains small, the certain lethality of it when it does occur should be cause for concern. At this point we can say that any diet pill that actually affects appetite (i.e. |
Craig Pepin-Donat
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 Today, people are popping diet pills, vitamins, minerals and herbal supplements like candy in the hopes of finding the ultimate quick-fix solutions to their health concerns. Instead of natural cures we should be focused on natural living to avoid diseases that need to be cured.
How can you avoid falling for the lies of products that do not work or do actual harm? First, find the right resources that can provide you with unbiased information. Know what you are ingesting and do not be fooled by slick marketing gimmicks designed to make you believe results will come without work. |
Bottom Line Health
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| Three recent studies examined the effects of diet pills, lifestyle changes and daily weight monitoring to try to determine what works best in the fight against obesity.
STUDY #1: MERIDIA PLUS LIFESTYLE CHANGES
The first study found that the weight-loss drug sibutramine (Meridia) is most effective when users also eat right and exercise.
In a one-year trial, researchers gave 224 obese adults 15 milligrams (mg) of Meridia every day. |
Marshall Editions
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 Stimulant medications: Many stimulant medications, such as diet pills and drugs used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), can cause insomnia. Children with ADHD are at particularly high risk of developing insomnia. Asthma medications, and all medications mixed with caffeine, can also cause insomnia. Some antidepressants, some blood pressure medications, and cold medicines can also lead to disturbed sleep.
Pharmaceutical sleeping aides: Medications can be used for a short period of time (a maximum of three weeks) to induce sleep. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 As a consumer health advocate, I speak out on anything that I see as ripping people off, whether it's drug companies, disease mongering psychiatrists, or counterfeit diet pills. In this case, the hoodia craze has attracted the most unscrupulous operators who continue to sell counterfeit hoodia diet pills simply because they know they can get away with it. But there are a few honest players in the market who offer genuine hoodia gordonii, and I list them below.
Let me be clear about my position on hoodia: My complaint is not with the hoodia plant itself. |
Jonny Bowden, M.A., C.N.S.
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| What About Over-the-Counter "Ephedra-Free" diet pills?
The new "ephedra-free" diet pills have simply replaced ephedra with bitter orange (citrus aurantium), an herb that contains the active ingredient synephrine. Synephrine is chemically very similar to ephedrine and pseu-doephedrine and has similar effects in terms of providing an energy boost, suppressing the appetite, and increasing metabolic rate and caloric expenditure. |
Marshall Editions
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| Anything that causes spasm of the blood vessels, such as nicotine, cold medicines, diet pills, and ephedra should be avoided. Certain herbal therapies, especially ginkgo, can also increase blood flow. Avoiding smoking is particularly important if you have Raynaud's disease.
Medication: Calcium channel blockers, usually nifedipine, are used to treat Raynaud's disease. Nitroglycerin, which causes the direct dilation of the blood vessels, has also been used topically. |
Shannon Brownlee
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 But perhaps the most significant moment in the fen-phen saga occurred when a group of researchers in Europe and Canada published a study of ninety-five patients with pulmonary hypertension in the New England Journal of Medicine that linked the disease to diet pills. The study wasn't proof that the diet pill caused the condition, but Redux had just been approved, and news that it might cause pulmonary hypertension could have been bad for sales. |
Marshall Editions
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| White foods should be avoided, as should fad diets, such as liquid diets or diet pills, as they do not tend to promote sustainable weight loss.
Exercise: Try to find an exercise activity to incorporate into your daily routine that is both physically achievable and enjoyable. It is important to accumulate 30 minutes of aerobic exercise a day. This may be in the form of a rapid walk or a comparable bike ride, swim, or session on the cross trainer. In addition, you should lift weights three times a week to lose fat. |
Bottom Line Health
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| And that's when diet pills may come in handy, says Dr. Susan Yanovski, director of the Obesity and Eating Disorders Program at the US National Institute of Diabetes & Digestive & Kidney Diseases (NIDDK).
"All the weight-loss drugs have shown generally what I'd consider a modest weight loss compared with placebo, usually somewhere in the range of five to 15 pounds additional weight loss," says Yanovski.
Weight-loss pills "should not be used alone," Yanovski advises.
"Don't look for a quick fix from the drug store. |
J. Douglas Bremner
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| The Bottom Line
Don't take diet pills, herbs, or supplements. Not for a few weeks, not for a few days, not ever. Not alone and not in combination with a diet program. In my opinion, diet drugs are a bad solution in the long and short term, even for people who have a lot of weight to lose (more than thirty pounds). If you are overweight you need to exercise, stop drinking sugar-added beverages, and cook all of your meals at home. If you need to drink soda, make it diet. Water is best. A pill will not solve your problem. |
| Amphetamines are also used as diet pills, and as a consequence Adderall often has serious appetitesuppression effects: Remember that Jack lost ten pounds when he was taking the drug, a substantial loss for a young boy. Like Ritalin, Adderall probably has some long-term growth-suppression effects, either directly or through its effects on appetite suppression and consequent decreased food intake. Other side effects are palpitations, nervousness, rapid heart rate, and upset stomach.
Adderall has also been linked to rare cases of sudden death. |
Michael Pollan
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 Much more so than the human body, capitalism is marvelously adaptive, able to turn the problems it creates into new business opportunities: diet pills, heart bypass operations, insulin pumps, bariatric surgery. But though fast food may be good business for the health care industry, the cost to society—an estimated $250 billion a year in diet-related health care costs and rising rapidly—cannot be sustained indefinitely. An American born in 2000 has a 1 in 3 chance of developing diabetes in his lifetime; the risk is even greater for a Hispanic American or African American. |
Ann M. Coulston and Carol J. Boushey
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 Adolescents using unhealthy weight-control behaviors were at approximately three times the risk for being overweight 5 years later, suggesting that behaviors such as skipping meals, taking diet pills, and imposing strict dietary restrictions may be counterproductive to long-term weight management [224]. Similarly, in a prospective study on adolescent girls by Stice and his colleagues [225], baseline dieting behaviors and dietary restraint were found to be associated with obesity onset 4 years later. |
Melody Petersen
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 Viagra and diet pills were for sale, according to a classified ad in the Forest City Summit, a local newspaper in northern Iowa. "No prev. prescription or DR visit req'd," the ad promised. All a person required was a phone and a valid credit card.
Iowans of every age were on regimens of medications. Some toddlers were growing up in a permanently medicated state. |
Dr. Arthur Janov
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 She will not rev up her system—and her baby's—by ingesting caffeine in soft drinks or coffee, not to mention taking diet pills or cocaine.
Giving birth with love means the mother will avoid taking an anesthetic to ease her own pain because she knows it will deprive the baby of oxygen and shut down many of her baby's systems. Because birth is often a life-and-death matter, a trauma inflicted here becomes imprinted and can endure for a lifetime. After birth, for a mother to love her baby, she must hold it close and breast-feed so that she and her child can develop a strong bond. |
Wendy Bazilian, DRPH, MA, RD, Steven Pratt, MD, Kathy Matthews
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 That's why fad diets, diet pills, exotic supplements, and weight loss surgery are so popular. But these methods can take a toll: on your energy levels, your appearance, your ability to stay trim and fit as well as your future health. We think the SuperFoodsRx Diet is a better way and you'll see immediate results in the mirror. Tour skin doesn't lie. Your glowing, smoother, skin will show you like nothing else can that as your clothes get looser and your energy levels increase and your moods stabilize, your body is enjoying its best health ever. |
Andreas Moritz
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 When obese individuals undergo rapid or substantial weight loss by following an unbalanced diet program or using diet pills, the congested and, therefore, undernourished body seeks to utilize nutrient and fat components from reserve deposits. This quickly raises blood fats and further increases the risk of gallstone formation. The sudden formation of gallstones among people following rapid weight loss programs appears to be a result of increased cholesterol and decreased bile salts in the bile. |
Joe Graedon, M.S. and Teresa Graedon, Ph.D.
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 People have been selling herbal diet pills for more than 30 years. If they really worked, we'd all be as thin as we'd like to be. In most cases, the only thing that will lose weight is your wallet.
The track record for herbal diet pills is frankly rather discouraging. For quite a while, ephedra (Ephedra sinica) was promoted as a natural weight loss aid. Companies producing ephedra products made a lot of money until, eventually, the FDA reviewed all the reports of problems with this herb. |
C. W. Randolph, M.D.
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| I told Sylvia that I could help her without diet pills or antidepressants. After following the plan for six weeks, she walked into the office a changed woman. She had lost nine pounds and an inch and a half from her waist. Within ten weeks, she celebrated with a shopping spree for new size 8 pants. In my practice, I have helped thousands of people like Sylvia, people who had no idea that shifting hormone production was the hidden culprit causing their weight gain. |
J. Douglas Bremner
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| Connolly and colleagues also found other life-threatening side effects with diet pills, notably the dangerous effects of "fen-phen" (fenfluramine-phentermine) on the heart. Although the combination of these pills was never approved by the FDA, by 1996 more than 18 million prescriptions a year were being written for this combination of pills as a weight-loss treatment. Dr. Connolly and her colleagues noticed an unusual number of young women showing up in their practices with heart murmurs. |
Mike Adams
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 Coffee, tea, chocolate, cocoa, many soft drinks, diet pills, aspirin, various analgesics used for migraine headache and vascular pain, and even some herbal preparations contain either caffeine or very closely related substances. Examples of such caffeine-like substances are theobromine in chocolate and cocoa and theophylline in tea. When caffeine and similar compounds are taken in excess, any of several symptoms usually result: anxiety and nervousness, insomnia or light sleep patterns, various types of heart disease, stomach and intestinal maladies, and moodiness. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 So don't turn to hoodia, PYY nasal spray or any other diet pills and expect to drop the pounds without getting into a regular exercise routine. Take responsibility for your actions, and don't make the mistake of thinking that you'll lose weight without physical exercise. That's simply not possible. At best, these supplements or drugs are tools that can aid you in weight loss and help amplify your results or ease the effort required to get those results. But they won't do the work for you. |
Dr. Timothy Scott
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 Redux was the first half of the famous combination of two diet pills, Redux (dexfenfluramine) and Phentermine—hence, fen-phen.23 Most Americans have heard of the heart-valve damage and primary pulmonary hypertension which occurred in thousands of fen-phen users.24 The resultant lawsuits will cost Wyeth, the manufacturer of Redux, an estimated $21.1 billion.25 Few realize that Redux almost never made it to market. An FDA advisory committee voted 5 to 3 in September of 1995 to keep the drug off the market because animal studies found it could cause brain damage in animals. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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| In this case, the hoodia craze has attracted the most unscrupulous operators who continue to sell counterfeit hoodia diet pills simply because they know they can get away with it. But there are a few honest players in the market who offer genuine hoodia gordonii, and I list them below.
Let me be clear about my position on hoodia: My complaint is not with the hoodia plant itself. I am a strong advocate of plant-based nutrition and various nutritional supplements. Nature is not the problem here; the con artists are the problem. |
| They're selling so-called "hoodia diet pills" that actually contain no detectable levels of hoodia whatsoever, and that conclusion is based on High Performance Thin-Layer Chomatography (HPTLC) testing, digital microscopy and other lab tests.
Based on my conversation with Alkemist Pharmaceuticals, the top hoodia testing lab in the U.S., it is now clear that a minimum of 60 percent of the hoodia being sold in the United States is counterfeit and the actual number is probably much higher. |
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