Diet pills

Can taking a diet pill really help you to lose weight or is it just another money making ploy for the weight loss industry?

Diet pills Pound-shedding 'miracle' weight loss tablets promise us the easy way when we're desperate to shift weight, and with so many women seeking that Holy Grail of a slender physique with as little effort as possible, it's no wonder that the diet pill industry is a flourishing one.

Type 'diet pill' into any internet search engine and you're likely to be inundated with thousands of products promising to help you drop pounds in a matter of days. But how much faith can we have in a market that plays on one of the biggest insecurities that Western women have – being fat? Should we bother with diet pills, and if so, which ones?

According to Dr Ian Campbell, who founded the National Obesity Forum in 2002, properly prescribed anti-obesity medication can sometimes "tip the balance into weight loss" for people who are trying but struggling. However, there are only two drugs prescribed within the NHS.

"Xenical is a lipase-inhibitor which reduces the amount of fat absorbed by the small intestine,' says Dr Campbell. "Patients are encouraged to have a low-fat diet to avoid unpleasant side-effects of anal leakage and oily stools.

Reductil is a satiety-enhancer. It makes you feel fuller quicker but it causes a rise in blood pressure so cannot be used by some patients."

Don't expect to walk into your GP's and leave with a prescription for skinny, though. "NHS patients must have a body mass index of 28 or more to be eligible for treatment with drugs," says Dr Campbell, and they should only be prescribed after dietary and lifestyle changes suggested by your doctor have been attempted for one to three months.

What's legal?
While there are no pharmaceutical diet pills which are "outright banned", says Dr Campbell, others are permissible for use on a named patient basis only. In effect, this means they are only available from private slimming clinics.

Tenuate Dospan is one amphetamine-based slimming tablet that the NHS has stopped using, but Linda Wright, 55, paid about £50 a month at a private clinic to obtain it a number of years ago.

Linda wasn't happy with the side-effects and said she soon felt addicted to the medication. "I took two tablets one evening because they didn't seem to be working and I wasn't losing weight – they kept me awake all night. I felt anxious and was sweating."

What about herbal and over-the-counter pills?
Though some such as Zotrim, one of the top three sellers at Boots, appear to be backed by research, it's worth being realistic about what you can expect from over-the-counter (OTC) remedies.

There is also Liposinol, which has been proven to remove up to 28% of undigested fats and up to 150 calories from a standard meal in clinical trials. It binds the dietary fats to form a fat-fibre complex, remaining unaffected by changes in pH levels between the stomach and small intestine, unlike previous fat binders. This fat-fibre complex is too large to be absorbed in the small intestine and is therefore eliminated naturally.

"Though I wouldn't dismiss anything," says Vanessa Wright, an obesity dietician based at Barnsley Hopsital, "there is a reason why there are only two drugs used by the NHS."

Dr Campbell adds, "There are a lot of preparations that do seem to have some benefit, but as doctors we'd like to see evidence over years before using."

And the hardest pill to swallow is the truth that we all know, as Wright reminds us: "The diet industry is a multi-million pound industry but what is the most important is changing the way people think about food and exercise."

Ultimately, the responsibility for weight loss lies with you.

Find out more about the diet pills Xenical and Reductil

Get more health and fitness, diet and weight loss advice from Zest and netdoctor.co.uk

Published: 06 June 2006