If you have ever tried to lose weight like most of us, you are well aware of all of the diet pills out there. There are so many options out there in diet pills that many people are confused as to what works and what doesn’t.
The problem is that many of the ingredients in diet pills have not been conclusively proven to contribute to weight loss. The U.S.’s Food & Drug Administration does not evaluate the claims of diet pills and nutritional supplements. So many times, the only information consumers have about the effectiveness of these pills is the claims from the manufacturers themselves.
Sometimes the manufacturers of the diet pills will fund their own clinical research studies that ‘prove’ the effectiveness of their drug to help people lose weight. As you might imagine, this is probably not the most objective source of information!
People usually want to turn to diet pills for an easy solution to lose weight because the traditional methods – diet and exercise – are difficult for many people to do. So, they look to diet pills – many of them sponsored by celebrities – for an easy answer. Again, because the effectiveness of these diet pills is not really known, people look to the products that celebrities advertise. If it worked for them and they say it works, the thinking goes, and then maybe it will work for me.
Another factor in the controversy over diet pills is their cost. Americans spend billions of dollars every year for diet pills. And their effectiveness is unknown, so it is possible that much of that money is wasted.
The controversy about diet pills and the lack of regulation in the industry can be seen in a recent announcement by FDA about two Brazilian drug products sold on the Internet as dietary supplements for weight loss. The FDA announced that both drugs contain active ingredients that are used in a sedative, antidepressant and an unapproved stimulant. All of these ingredients could cause serious health problems.
FDA continued by stating that many diet pills contain drugs of unknown origin and quality, so that it could be dangerous to take them. The agency also noted that it is difficult to trace problems associated with these drugs if people experience adverse side effects.
The diet pills in question contain active ingredients in two prescription drugs — Librium and Prozac.
Librium is often prescribed to relieve anxiety and control symptoms of alcohol withdrawal. Prozac has been linked to several serious drug interactions and certain serious adverse events, including suicidal thinking and behaviors in pediatric patients, anxiety and insomnia.
So, it is a good idea to use caution when thinking about taking any kind of diet pill, whether or not it is endorsed by celebrity who claims to have lost a lot of weight using the product.