Following the politically movitvated ban on ephedra by the FDA, makers
of diet pills and weight loss supplements have been frantically
reformulating their products to achieve ephedra-like results. The most
common alternative? Caffeine.
The real story on diet pills, however,
isn't so simple. For starters, there's the ephedra ban which has been
illegally initiated by a rogue government agency that primarily serves
to protect the pharmaceutical industry while discrediting all
nutritional supplements. There are 150 deaths apparently linked to
ephedra. Over-the-counter pain medications kill 40,000 American each
year by comparison. Prescription drugs kill another 100,000. Where
is the FDA outcry on these drugs?
Second, there's the abuse issue.
You can't possible be killed by ephedra unless you abuse it by taking
too many pills at once in some sort of desparate weight loss attempt.
Over-the-counter pain pills and prescription drugs, by comparison, kill
people even when taken at the proper dosage So there's a
tremendous difference in the risk of death with ephedra vs. prescription
drugs, and yet the FDA chose to focus on ephedra.
The real story
goes beyond just the FDA, by the way: people taking diet pills are
seeking to accelerate their weight loss efforts, of course. While using
nutritional supplements to aid in weight loss is fine, far too many
consumers rely exclusively on diet pills rather than addressing the
fundamentals: nutrition and physical exercise. If you don't stop
drinking soft drinks and eating metabolic disruptors, you'll never lose
weight. If you don't exercise an hour a day, you'll never be thin. If
you don't supplement your diet with nutritionally-dense superfoods like
chlorella, quinoa and flax oil, you'll never be able to lose the weight
you really want.
You can't get thin from taking a pill. Yes, a pill
can help, but the real effort has to come from you.
About the author: Mike Adams is a natural health author and award-winning journalist with a mission to teach personal and planetary health to the public He has authored and published thousands of articles, interviews, consumers guides, and books on topics like health and the environment, reaching millions of readers with information that is saving lives and improving personal health around the world. Adams is a trusted, independent journalist who receives no money or promotional fees whatsoever to write about other companies' products. In 2010, Adams co-founded NaturalNews.TV, a natural health video sharing site that has now grown in popularity. He's also a successful software entrepreneur, having founded a well known email marketing software company whose technology currently powers the NaturalNews email newsletters. Adams also serves as the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a non-profit consumer protection group, and pursues hobbies such as martial arts, Capoeira, nature macrophotography and organic gardening.
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Monday, May 10, 2004
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