A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association has shown that 7% of American adults use over-the-counter weight loss supplements, most of whom are young overweight women.
Anyone who Googles 'diet pills' or 'weight loss' will be amazed at the vast number of different brands available. The options go into millions and many of these are actively marketed to such a degree that any mention of those words as anchor text in a comments box will be highlighted as spam and deleted from people's inboxes accordingly.
The pharmaceutical drugs work by changing the body's ability to regulate its appetite, metabolism or calorific absorption.
Orlistat/Xenical inhibits pancreatic lipase to reduce intestinal fat absorption. However, if the user continues to consume high fat foods, the result can be very loose, oily stools or even fecal incontinence.
Metformin, Exenatide and Pramlintide are all only available to overweight diabetics.
A similar drug to Pramlintide is Symlin. This is being tested on non-diabetics because it helps to suppress appetite by making the user feel fuller for longer. However, the major drawback is that it has to be administered by injection.
Some drugs have been withdrawn from the market because their side effects outweighed their health benefits.
Still more are still at the testing stage, but many of these are amphetamine or caffeine related and so, whilst they can boost the metabolism, they can also be associated with heart problems and strokes.
With obesity becoming a major problem in the Western World, scientists have been experimenting with more traditional herbal alternatives to see if there are less side effects.
Again, Googling 'herbal weight loss pills' furnished over 1,600,000 results - and the majority were selling hard without giving away too much about the content of their product.
As with their pharmacological counterparts, herbal weight loss pills tend to use natural substances which either help the body to burn fat or suppress the appetite and the most popular ingredient at the moment is Hoodia.
Hoodia Gordonii is a spiny, succulent - a bit like a cactus - which grows in the deserts of Namibia and South Africa. With flowers which are pollinated mainly by flies because they smell like rotten meat, on first sight, it doesn't seem to have much going for it. However, the heart or meat of the plant is a dieter's super food, encouraging the burning of fat, boosting of the metabolism, appetite suppression and energy enhancement.
Best of all, unlike a lot of its chemical competitors, it does not contain caffeine or ephedrine, substances which can accelerate the body's metabolism but with serious side effects.
However, even Hoodia has its problems as you can never be sure if the many brands available will be effective. This is because some companies utilise the less beneficial skin or spine of the plant, rather than the meat.
There have also been links to liver problems and suppression of thirst as well as appetite.
You should always check with your healthcare professional before taking any herbal supplement as these can interfere with other prescription medications. At the end of the day, any supplement is only going to work short-term.
It is important to remember that weight loss achieved with such methods can only be maintained if you address your natural levels of food consumption and work to find a cyclical method that incorporates food from all the main nutritional groups. This is the only way to attain the optimum metabolic rate and retain your goal weight.
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