Diet Pills: Not Effective, Unless You Want To Be Depressed

Dodai — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 15:40:00 EST

Obesity is an epidemic. Over a billion people worldwide are overweight or obese. So naturally weight-loss drugs are big business. New research reveals that though over $1.2 billion was spent on obesity drugs worldwide in 2005, pills do not help people lose a significant amount of weight. BBC News reports that a team from the University of Alberta Canada culled "evidence from thirty placebo-controlled trials, involving nearly 20,000 people, where adults took one of three anti-obesity drugs — orlistat, sibutramine or rimonabant — for a year or longer." They found that pills like orlistat reduce weight by less than 5%. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence recommends stopping the use of anti-obesity drugs if 5% of total body weight is not lost after three months. In other words, the Institute cannot justify using pills to lose weight.

In addition, some of the drugs, like rimonabant, give users an increased risk of mental health problems. Those taking rimonabant were 40% more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety. (Rimonabant is sold in the UK under the name Acomplia, but is not available in the US because it's so likely to make patients commit suicide. Thanks, FDA! )

Doctors say that selling anti-obesity drugs over the counter perpetuates the myth that losing weight is as easy as popping a pill. Professor Gareth Williams, professor of medicine at the University of Bristol, has earth-shattering news: "Globally, obesity is spiralling out of control and will only be reined in by public health campaigns that somehow persuade people to eat less and exercise more." Yeah, but then the drug companies wouldn't rake in billions of dollars!

Fat Pills Give Modest Weight Loss [BBC News]
Weight-loss Drug Increases Chance Of Depression [Guardian]

Does Exercise Make You Hungry Instead Of Thin?

Dodai — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 11:30:00 EDT

Are you sitting down? Are you ready to believe that everything you know is wrong? Because in the new issue of New York magazine, Gary Taubes writes that exercise does not make us thinner. The article is extremely long, but luckily, in the Wall Street Journal today, Bob Cwiklik breaks it down. Taubes admits that working out is great for your health, but, "the one thing that might be said about exercise with certainty is that it tends to makes us hungry." He suggests that what really determines how fat or lean a person is has more to do with the body's own internal programming. Taubes also questions the idea that exercise makes us feel better about ourselves, writing, "This may be purely a cultural phenomenon. It's hard to imagine that the French, for instance, would improve their self-esteem by spending more time at the gym."

Back in 1977, the National Institute of Health hosted its second conference on obesity and weight control. "The importance of exercise in weight control is less than might be believed," the assembled experts concluded. And still, the workout culture of the 80s exploded, aerobics, Jazzercise and all.

But, Taubes argues, it's not exercising that affects your weight. It's the way your body is wired.

The key is that among the many things regulated in this homeostatic system—along with blood pressure and blood sugar, body temperature, respiration, etc.—is the amount of fat we carry. From this biological or homeostatic perspective, lean people are not those who have the willpower to exercise more and eat less. They are people whose bodies are programmed to send the calories they consume to the muscles to be burned rather than to the fat tissue to be stored—the Lance Armstrongs of the world. The rest of us tend to go the other way, shunting off calories to fat tissue, where they accumulate to excess. This shunting of calories toward fat cells to be stored or toward the muscles to be burned is a phenomenon known as fuel partitioning.

The real news here is that, like the South Beach or Atkins diets purport, carbs seem to be the problem. "If we eat fewer carbohydrates—in particular the easily digestible simple carbohydrates and sugars — we might lose considerable fat or at least not gain any more, whether we exercise or not." We're off to buy some beef jerky.

The Scientist and the Stairmaster [New York]
Exercise Will Make You Healthy, But Probably Not Thinner [WSJ]

Jezebel: big fat lies

Diet Pills: Not Effective, Unless You Want To Be Depressed

Does Exercise Make You Hungry Instead Of Thin?