Are Any Diet Pills Safe? - An Unbiased Look at Diet Pills and How They Work

Are Any Diet Pills Safe? - An Unbiased Look at Diet Pills and How They Work

Diet pills are now more popular than ever. We are chasing that "miracle pill" that we can take and fix everything. We have made wonderful advances in the field of medicine and have pills that can cure many diseases. We have truly become used to being able to take a pill to fix a problem. If you have an infection, we are given antibiotics. If you have a head-ache, we have a pill to fix that too. Pills to greatly reduce the chances of falling pregnant. Just about any medical reason you can think of, there is a pill to fix. We have become reliant on the fact that a pill can fix a problem. So it is natural for us to believe that a pill can also fix weight problems. Every now and then a new dieting miracle pill will come on to the market and we all rush to buy this new one because we are hoping that "this is the one". But we are always disappointed.

But are any diet pills safe? In a nutshell, if they are ineffective, then they may be safe enough. But what good is an ineffective pill? If they are effective, then they are probably not safe. So it is a catch 22. Most diet pills work in one of two ways - either as a diuretic or as an energy booster.

Diuretic pills cause our body to fluid from our system. Dehydrating our system of it's natural fluids. This certainly does result in loss of weight, but not fat. It is a very unsafe and unhealthy way of losing weight and will not make you look any slimmer. In fact, once you finish this sort of dieting, you will more likely be heavier than when you started. If you stay on these sort of pills for too long, you can cause permanent damage to your body. Dehydration is dangerous and stupid.

The idea behind energy boosting pills is that by providing your body with more energy, you will be more active and want to burn off that extra energy. Does this work? Well, let us first consider what causes excess weight in our body in the first place?

Excess weight (fat) on our body is caused when our body receives more energy (food) than it can burn off. The excess energy is stored in our body by being converted into fat. So the simple equation is - Fat = Unspent Energy. If this is the case, then how is a pill providing you with more energy supposed to help you lose weight? This was the problem to begin with! Too much energy, not enough exercise!

In all fairness, these energy pills themselves do not usually contain any fat or calories, but are supposed to give you energy you need to want to exercise etc. But if your body uses this "fat free" energy from the pills first, then the "food" energy in your body is still not being used!

In short, diet pills do not work and are not safe. Perhaps one day we will see a real fat stripping pill, but by far the best way of losing weight is to do it the correct way. Eat sensibly, get regular exercise, drink plenty of water and get good quality sleep.