By Nikki London
Now what about herbal diet pills, which are so often touted as
being "all natural"? These pills can still produce many
severe side effects depending upon their ingredients. Keep
in mind that "herbal" is not the same as "safe." Also,
because such pills are considered part of the food industry,
they are regulated differently by the FDA. Which means that
you have no guarantees that they will live up to their
claims.
Can Any of These Pills Be Life Threatening?
It is probably too soon to come to firm conclusions about many
of these pills. It usually takes a
few years before the medical community discovers
what is really happening with them.
Back in 1996, diet pills as an industry had really
boomed. Over 18 million people in the US were ingesting a
wide variety of appetite suppressants resulting in great
amount of weight loss success. Most of these pills contained fenfluramine (or
dexfenfluramine) and phentermine, and the combination was
called fen-phen for short.
But then the medical community began to see that patients
who had been taking fen-phen, who had been quite healthy up
to that point, were suddenly developing life-threatening heart disease. So
late in 1997, the FDA withdrew all of the "fen" related
drugs from the market. But phentermine is still available by
itself.
Another popular diet pill during this era contained a
powerful amphetamine-like stimulant called ephedra (or the
Chinese herb ma huang). When ephedra is used together with
caffeine, it will trigger weight loss. Unfortunately, it
achieved this by speeding the heart rate, dramatically
raising the risks of both heart attack and stroke for its
users.
During this period, it is reported that with those taking
medications containing ephedra, 154 people had died. So
late in 2003, the FDA announced that it was banning all
drugs containing ephedra. In response, manufacturers of
over-the-counter diet pills removed the ingredient from
their products and now produce ephedra-free versions.
How Should You Take Diet Pills?
If you are going to take any of these diet pills, I would
make several suggestions for you:
1. Research the particular diet pill you will be
using. Research can be as simple as typing the name of
the pill into Google and doing a search for negative side
effects. If a pill has been a problem for others, you'll
want to know about that before you start taking it.
2. Beware of pills you could become addicted to.
Many of the weight loss pills will, over time, make you
addicted to them. Check out the advertising and the labels
and do research online and in forums to see what other
people are saying about them. Becoming addictive to these
diet pills could cause major health issues for you later.
3. Never take more than the recommended dose.
Women sometimes think that they can achieve greater results
by just taking more diet pills than is recommended. But it doesn't make
any sense to lose weight at the expense of ruining your
health. I would follow the instructions exactly to ensure
that you don't create any unnecessary health problems for
yourself.
4. Be careful about taking diet pills before you eat.
This can be hazardous to your health if it prevents you
from eating enough food to keep your body functioning
properly. Taking diet pills that stop you from feeling
hungry means that you will probably skip meals. This will
either leave you with no energy or enthusiasm for life, or a
craving which will make you later gorge on food when you
come off the drugs.
5. Remember that your body will "compensate" for
taking diet pills. If you take pills over a prolonged
period, it is highly likely that your body will slow down
your metabolism (in an effort to keep the food that
you are giving to it). If this happens, you will probably find
that very little amounts of food will trigger weight gain.
This can be very frustrating to any dieter.
6. If you take diet pills, please also change your
lifestyle. It is important to understand the
effects of the diet pill will be
temporary. So the best way to ensure that you won't be jumping
on the treadmill of up and down weight-loss and weight-gain,
is to use these pills in conjunction with a healthy diet of
vitamin rich food and regular exercise.
Ultimately, the best weight loss program probably both a nutritional approach
and an exercise program, like this:
You might want to take a look at Mike Geary's video
describing his powerful presentation, "The
Truth About SIX PACK ABS."
7. Read up on your metabolism. The reasons you
lose and gain weight are important to understand, as they
are the foundation of truly losing weight. This is why I
would highly recommend that you read my article: "Being
Overweight May Not Be Your Fault" (which is coming soon).
