There is a really great article in the Daily Mail today about diet pills. There are so many quack weight loss remedies on the market today and this article provides an unbiased critique from a state registered dietician. It is definitely worth a read.
As a regulated slimming clinic we understand that many people are desperate to lose weight and there is a whole unregulated industry out there ready to exploit them. The Online Clinic will normally only ever recommend prescription diet pills as they have been through clinical trials to demonstrate efficacy and safety. Occasionally things go wrong however and even licensed medications can be found to have detrimental side effects that are not outweighed by any clinical benefit. As we have reported on these pages, both Acomplia and Reductil have lost their licenses in the last few years. Whether or not Reductil really was safe for the patient group for whom it was intended is still up for debate but there is no real evidence that it was not safe for people without pre-existing cardiovascular risk but the regulators are not taking any chances on this one and Reductil has been withdrawn. The same is true for Acomplia. We know that this medication worked for some people and not for others and we were very careful not to prescribe it to anyone with psychiatric risk factors but the fact that some people committed suicide when on the medication is obviously something that is not acceptable and only became apparent in post license marketing.
The Daily Mail article comes out against all of the non-prescription diet pills available other than Alli, which contains Orlistat. The slimming aid that comes top of their survey is Xenical, which is the medication that we prescribe. Appesat gets a low score and this result accords with our experience of this treatment. We have had a lot of patients who have asked for Appesat but most (not all however) have not had great results with it. Appesat works as a bulking agent but only works when taken with a meal so it does not help with those mid-morning and afternoon snackers.
Until another medication comes along (and there are a few in the pipeline) then Xenical is going to be our diet aid of choice. For the record, this one got 8/10 in the Daily Mail survey.