J. Douglas Bremner
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 However, diet drugs generally have not been shown to help people reach or sustain their weight-loss goal. Long-term use of diet drugs is also associated with some dangers, most important among them being the risk of heart attack or other cardiovascular event (even in young people). Another worrisome consequence of diet pills is primary pulmonary hypertension (PPH), a disorder typically of unknown cause that is associated with an increase in the pressure of the arteries in the lungs. The primary manifestation of PPH is breathing problems with exercise. |
| In my opinion, diet drugs are a bad solution in the long and short term, even for people who have a lot of weight to lose (more than thirty pounds). If you are overweight you need to exercise, stop drinking sugar-added beverages, and cook all of your meals at home. If you need to drink soda, make it diet. Water is best. A pill will not solve your problem.
However, if you insist on ignoring my advice and are determined to take a pill, start out with one of the nondiet pills, like Prozac. |
Shannon Brownlee
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 The power of this under-the-table marketing can be seen in the tragedy of fen-phen, the wildly popular but potentially deadly off-label combination of two different diet drugs, fenfluramine and phentermine, that was removed from the market in 1997. At least forty-five thousand people, according to the manufacturer's own estimates, were harmed by the drug, which may cause pulmonary hypertension—high blood pressure in the lungs that can lead to damage to the heart valves and death. |
Craig Pepin-Donat
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 Doctors reported an increase in heart valve failure resulting from the key ingredients of dexfenflu-ramine and fenfluramine in these "miracle diet drugs." Prior to its recall in 1997, the dream drug Fen-Phen turned into a nightmare for the 6 million people who had been using it and suddenly, had to worry about the damage that it had done to their hearts.
Merck & Co., Inc., in September 2004, announced that Vioxx (Rofecoxib) would be removed from the worldwide market because of increased cardiovascular events, including heart attack and stroke. |
Jonny Bowden, M.A., C.N.S.
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 With the exception of Steiner and Piatek, virtually every holistic, integrative, or nutritionally based doctor I spoke to recoiled in horror at the mention of diet drugs. The most frequently cited objections were dependency, adrenal stress and burnout (the drugs are, after all, stimulants), and the fact that you have to keep taking them in order to keep the weight off. Dr. Diana Schwarzbein
The drugs my doctor prescribed helped me get to a point where I could really look at my life, reorder my priorities, and change my relationship to food. Now it's time to think about getting off them. |
Byron J. Richards
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 In this situation it is risky to use stimulants to try to lose weight; these include diet drugs, boosting up thyroid medication, and increasing caffeine ingestion. Such strategies may work minimally in the short term, but they add considerable stress to the kidneys and may aggravate other problems discussed in this chapter.
The best lifestyle adjustment is to lessen physical and emotional demands during the day and to take longer walks. Intense exercise tends to induce too much inflammation, which is already a problem. |
Byron J. Richards, CCN
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 Turning to diet drugs or gastric bypass surgery have serious and long-lasting effects on metabolism and overall health. There is a healthy way to solve these issues. It begins with understanding the body and how it is supposed to be working. It continues with the application of what is learned on a consistent basis. Only in this way can a Health Asset Manager™ solve the problems of leptin.
Male Hormone Fitness
"7"~estosterone is the primary male hormone, the behavioral essence of a ( man's competitive drive. Estrogen is the primary female hormone. |
Kelly Harford, M.C., C.N.C.
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 It singles out affected individuals offering fad diets, diet drugs and herbal supplements that are geared toward losing weight often at the expense of one's overall health. It fails to promote prevention and education about healthy alternatives and how to steer clear of heavily advertised processed food.
As mentioned, healthy eating guidelines and educational programs established by organizations and agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control, have funding that pales in comparison to the enormous advertising dollars of the food manufacturers. |
Dr. Vern Cherewatenko and Paul Perry
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 In my program, I use a common weight-loss herb known as hydroxycitric acid, or HCA, which has been used for years as an herbal alternative to diet drugs like fen-phen and Redux.
HCA., unlike these controversial diet drugs that work by altering brain chemistry, allows the muscles of the body to absorb more glucose. When this happens, a "full" signal is sent to the brain, resulting in a reduced food intake.
In addition to increasing the rate of glucose absorption, hydroxycitric acid also binds up leftover glucose in the bloodstream, slowing down the rate at which glucose is converted to fat. |
Peter Rost
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 Pondimin and Redux off the market in 1997. These drugs contained the same active substance, which had caused heart-valve and lung damage in some of the approximately 5.8 million Americans who took them.30
Schering-Plough Pays Record Fine
In 2002, Schering-Plough, another major pharmaceutical manufacturer, also signed a FDA consent decree and paid a $500-million fine, the highest monetary settlement in FDA history.31 They had violated manufacturing regulations at the firm's New Jersey and Puerto Rico plants. |
Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele
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 In the spring of 1996, about twenty-five pounds overweight, Linnen obtained a prescription for two widely touted diet drugs. At the time they were all the rage of the news media, talk shows, Wall Street, and morning news programs. The popular name was "fen-phen." The "fen" half was shorthand for fenfluramine, a cousin of the antidepressant Prozac. Fen was marketed under the brand name Pondimin by Wyeth. The "phen" half was phentermine, sold under its generic name. Together the two drugs altered the brain's chemistry to curb the craving for food. |
American Medical Publishing
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| We'll talk about a variety of other dangerous diet drugs, both prescription and over-the-counter a bit later, but for now, the story of fen-phen will demonstrate not only the dangers of a specific diet drug, but also the the duplicity and double-dealing of a major drug company.
FEN-PHEN THE FAT KILLER ~ THE HUMAN KILLER
In case you have not heard of the prescription diet drug commonly known as fen-phen, the drug refers to the use in combination of fenfluramine and phentermine. |
Earl Mindell
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 Clinical studies have shown that tyrosine supplementation has helped control medication-resistant depression and anxiety, as well as enable patients taking amphetamines (as mood elevators or diet drugs) to reduce their dosages to minimal levels in a matter of weeks.
Tyrosine has also helped cocaine addicts to kick their habit by helping to avert the depression, fatigue, and extreme irritability which accompany withdrawal. |
American Medical Publishing
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| ONLY ONE OF MANY
The story of fen-phen, bad as it is, represents just one of the deadly diet drugs. Even though fen-phen is off the market, dieters still should not relax. That's because there are still a number of extremely dangerous diet pill products on the market, and worse yet, most of them are available without a doctor's prescription! That's right. You can walk into drug store or health food store and get a bottle of deadly diet pills, and you may never find out how harmful they truly are. |
Marion Nestle
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 Everett Koop's health Web site arguing in favor of the safety of eating red meat or artificial fats like olestra, or taking diet drugs viewed as dangerous by the FDA. What the public relations materials do not reveal is the extent to which the ACSH is funded by the makers of such products. |
American Medical Publishing
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| The number of people who have died, or been terribly sickened by diet drugs, both prescription and nonprescription undoubtedly numbers in the hundreds of thousands in America alone.
Perhaps the best example of an extremely dangerous diet drug is the now infamous combination of two different drugs called "fen-phen." The "fen" in fen-phen refers to Pondimin (fenfluramine) and Redux (dexfenfluramine), both sold by the American drug company Wyeth-Ayert Laboratories. |
| Conclusions
The story of diet drugs is very sad indeed. Whether it be a deceitful and greedy major drug producer putting a deadly product in the hands of doctors, or dozens of so-called "health food" providers making all manner of dangerous herbal diet remedies, the story is always the same —people who are looking for an "easy" magic pill" remedy for a condition that is best not treated with drugs at all. What is the best way to lose weight? It's no secret. You eat less and exercise more! |
Stephen Fried
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 Michael Weintraub, got the idea of combining two older diet drugs so long out of vogue that they weren't even mentioned in most of the mass-market pill books; the very name of their drug class, "anorectics," had itself become politically incorrect. One was the amphetamine-like fenfluramine, a Schedule IV controlled substance (drugs with addiction potential are classified, in descending order of risk, from I to V) that had been sold as Pondimin for years by the A.H. Robins company but would later be marketed by Wyeth-Ayerst, its sister company under the American Home Products umbrella. |
| Diet chains like the Philadelphia-based Nutri/Systems began offering fen-phen prescriptions as a way to halt the precipitious drop-off in their business, which they blamed, in part, on dieters who felt they needed to choose between diet drugs and prepackaged meal plans.
Weintraub was horrified: his study almost singlehandedly created what began to be called "the pill mills." Never in the modern history of medicine had a prescription medication been so brazenly offered as a commodity. |
Earl Mindell, R.Ph., Ph.D.
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 And unlike prescription diet drugs that have recently been shown to cause heart problems, pyruvate is actually good for your heart: It can lower blood cholesterol levels and blood pressure, thereby reducing the risk of heart disease.
Pyruvate is naturally found in the body as a byproduct of normal metabolism. It is critical for energy use because it triggers the release of ATP, the fuel produced by the cells that provides energy for the entire body.
In another recent study, athletes who used pyruvate tired less easily and were able to increase their performance by an impressive 20 percent. |
Stephen Fried
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| But much of the news coverage would focus on the patients who wanted the diet drugs regardless of their safety. Since their physicians had been largely ignoring the label warnings on the drugs for years, they didn't quite understand why all of a sudden everyone was being so picky about a few hundred heart valves.
CHAPTER 1 9
Spin Control
Betsy Lehman would have done a great story about her case if she had lived to write about it. |
Thomas J. Moore
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 Her husband was off diet drugs and tapering off the Paxil. He was also seeing a counselor. Any specific episode is likely to generate debate about what was really responsible. Was the doctor to blame for prescribing a high-powered psychostimulant, Paxil, to someone already anxious and irritable from taking another drug— phentermine—with stimulant properties? |
| This story is from an Internet support group for people using diet drugs, especially "fen/phen," the nickname for the combination of fenfluramine and phentermine.*
Hello everybody.
I just wanted to share this with you. I think that the people taking fen/phen and their families should all know about this. My husband and I went on a fen/phen program. It was great, the pounds flew off. Other than the dry mouth, and some difficulty falling to sleep, everything seemed great. |
Artemis P. Simopoulos, M.D., and Jo Robinson
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 But once you abandon the pharmaceutical crutch—and virtually all diet drugs are to be used for only a limited time—you are at high risk for regaining all the weight because you haven't developed lasting coping skills.
A fourth reason The Omega Weight-Loss Diet will help you lose weight successfully is that it is high in fiber and bulk. You will be eating seven or more servings of fruits, vegetables, and legumes every day, food that is low in calories but takes up a lot of room in your gut. |
Dr. Vern Cherewatenko and Paul Perry
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| An article in a recent issue of Hospital Practice discussed the positive effects of diet drugs on type 2 diabetes, but then issued a warning to doctors who might consider prescribing them to patients. "Given the risks and caveats associated with anorectic drug therapy," the authors wrote, "one might wonder whether the potential benefits are worth the effort."
HCA, on the other hand, has no side effects. Ten years worth of research—both animal and human—shows that HCA reduces appetite by means of increased glycogen production. |
| Unlike other diet drugs and the commonly used diabetes medications, there are no side effects to using hydroxycitrate. Indeed, one of its main source, the brindle berry, is commonly used as a flavoring in curry in many Asian countries. It is also used as a preservative and digestive aid. Researchers at Hoffmann-La Roche, the pharmaceutical company that has conducted a large amount of HCA research, consider hydroxycitrate to be safer than the citric acid in oranges and other citrus fruits.
• HCA makes the body more receptive to insulin. |
| Used for years as an herbal alternative to diet drugs, HCA allows the muscles of the body to absorb more glucose, the sugar in the bloodstream that is the body's main form of fuel. The chromium taken with the HCA also helps with the absorption of glucose by the muscles.
The use of glucose is important. Glucose that is not used by the muscles and other body tissues stays in the bloodstream and causes the dangerous rise in blood sugar that is known as diabetes. Elevated blood sugar causes damage to the organs and other body parts. |
| Two of the groups were given two different diet drugs that did not contain HCA. The third group was given a medication containing HCA. The twenty-nine subjects in the HCA group lost an average of 11.48 pounds per person, while the other two groups lost 9.52 and 6.65 pounds per person respectively.
Hunger levels were significantly lower in the HCA group, as were lipid levels. Energy levels were higher, however.
Volunteers were given HCA for eight weeks to study its effects on obesity, a major risk factor of type 2 diabetes. |
Stephen Fried
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| Several companies announced they were developing new diet drugs to respond to inflating demand and societal acceptance.
Eventually, however, the diet drug market would pop. In the summer of 1997, a major journal article from the Mayo Clinic would indict fen-phen in a series of twenty-four cases of drug-induced heart valve damage. And, one year after its glowing endorsement of Redux and pharmaceutical treatments for obesity, The New England journal would call for a moratorium on diet drug use "for cosmetic purposes" and a reconsideration of the logic of approving Redux in the first place. |
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