Health Habits

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Posts Tagged ‘diet pills’

Diet Pills Suck

November 6th, 2008

Fenfluramine, the appetite suppressant drug banned in the US in 1997 due to fears over its links to heart conditions, has been shown to have serious long-term effects.

In a report published today in the journal BMC Medicine, researchers have shown that people who stopped using fenfluramine eleven years ago had damaged heart valves up to seven years later.

In this study, Charles Dahl from the Central Utah Clinic led a team of researchers who studied the heart condition of 5743 former fenfluramine users. He said, “Valve problems were common in individuals exposed to fenfluramines, more frequent in females and associated with duration of drug use in all valves assessed”.

Heart valves, such as the aortic, mitral and tricuspid valves, ensure that your blood flows in the correct direction around the heart.

When they fail, blood back-flows (termed regurgitation).

If the regurgitation is severe enough, congestive heart failure and/or the need for heart valve surgery may occur.

Dahl said, “We found clear evidence for a strong, graded association between duration of exposure to fenfluramines and prevalence of aortic regurgitation and for mild or greater mitral and tricuspid regurgitation”.

Let’s get this straight.

We take a drug that causes this…

Aortic Regurgitation

So that we can eat like this…

And look like this…

What???

Sorry to break the news to y’all, but…

+

=

Thus endeth the rant.

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New Diet Drug offers an Alternative to Obesity Surgery

May 27th, 2008

Tesofensine, a new diet drug being developed by the Danish drug company, NeuroSearch, had it’s coming out party at this years European Congress on Obesity.

Recent tests claimed that, with no changes to diet or lifestyle, the average test subject experienced an 11.2% average reduction in weight. In absolute terms, the average test subject lost 11.3 kg / 24.9 lbs. This weight loss took place over the course of a 24 week treatment with 0.5 mg Tesofensine tablets.

More data here.

TIPO-1 results	Placebo	Tesofensine 0.25 mg	Tesofensine 0.5 mg	Tesofensine 1.0 mg
ITT* population	52	52	50	49
Mean weight at base line (kg)	103.2	101.7	100.1	101.3
Average relative weight loss	2.0%	6.5%**	11.2%**	12.6%**
Average absolute weight loss (kg)	2.2	6.7**	11.3**	12.8**

25 lbs over 6 months with no additional exercise or dietary restriction.

Sounds pretty great.

In another test, Tesofensine produced 2.2 kg/4.85 lbs of weight loss in just 2 weeks. Once again, this test required that no dietary or lifestyle changes be made by the participants.

	Tesofensine	Placebo
Population (ITT)	n = 16	n = 16
Baseline average BMI	30.7	31.1
Baseline average weight (kg)	102.6	102.6
Total body weight loss (kg)	2.2	0.4
Maximum weight loss (kg)	4.7	1.5

Professor Arne Astrup, president of the International Association for the Study of Obesity said that “if doctors were to encourage users to lose weight before taking the tablets and to eat sensibly and exercise while taking them they could double their weight loss”.

“You could easily come up to 20 per cent weight loss which could offer an alternative to the surgical treatment of obesity which has become the only real cure or effective treatment that can provide a weight loss of that size”.

While I don’t agree with Dr. Astrup’s assertion that bariatric surgery is the only real cure or effective treatment for obesity, I am encouraged by the efficacy of this drug.

The Down Side

Not to be pessimistic, but how many times in the past have drug manufacturers claimed to have formulated the ultimate fat burning pill? Does anyone remember fen-Phen?

Right now, we know that there have been some promising tests. We also know that the drug has the following side effects: mild nausea, diarrhea, constipation, insomnia, mood changes, and, perhaps most importantly, increased heart rate.

My Conclusion

Unless you have a very serious medical condition that requires you to lose weight as soon as possible, I would not recommend being an ‘early adopter’ of any diet drug. NeuroSearch will be running further tests to look at increasing the efficacy and minimizing the side effects.

In the mean time, improving your physical fitness and your food intake is still the best way to go.

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