Diet Pill Pitfalls

Diet pills can be broken down into two classes: prescription, anti-obesity drugs (long and short term) which can only be prescribed by your doctor for severe obesity, and the other being herbal which is not FDA approved and can be bought without a doctor's prescription. The best thing to look for about a diet pill that's safe and effective is did it pass any clinical trials from an independent research lab, since No diet pill has any FDA approval. The more clinical trials that a specific diet pill passes is even better for the consumer's peace of mind and reassures the consumer that the product does indeed work. At this time I know of only one diet pill that fits this description by passing all 8 clinical trials it entered. The product is called Proactol and it removes 27% of the fat in each meal from your system, so you will lose about 14 pounds in less than a month without exercising. Another craze is called Hoodia. All you need to know is it suppresses your appetite for a couple hours at a time and you eat less, hence you lose weight. Very little clinical trials have been used in testing this theory of suppressing one's appetite for any amount of time. Yet people buy it in the truck loads and say that it works for them. The caveat with Hoodia is that hundreds of companies are selling practically sawdust and telling you that it's really Hoodia. Real Hoodia comes only from South Africa and you should definitely be weary of this product and who sells it whether online or in your brick and mortar stores. For instance, Yesweightloss.com is a very reputable diet pill resource site which teaches you what to look for when buying real Hoodia, and they make it even easier for you by listing only the reputable Hoodia website retailers that don't do the bait and switch on their customers.

Side Effects

The pitfalls with diet pills are quite a few unfortunately. They are not all created equally. Prescription diet pill drugs like phentermine or adipex can cause: fast heart rate which is not what you want, enhanced alertness, rise in your blood pressure, heart palpitations, insomnia and restlessness. there are 18 other side effects but I think you understand my point. Many of these prescription diet pills can only be taken for short term like less than 12 weeks due to drug tolerance. Non prescription diet pills have much less serious side effects and you should most definitely avoid ephedrine or ephedra (Ma Huang).

Another prescription diet pill, Orlistat, blocks absorption of dietary fats, and as a result may cause oily spotting bowel movements, oily stools, stomach pain, and flatulence. A similar drug, designed for people with Type 2 diabetes, is Acarbose which partially blocks absorption of carbohydrates in the small intestine, and produces similar side effects including stomach pain, and gas. Fat soluble vitamins are blocked when using some prescription diet pills which can be very unhealthy for you, while Proactol, a non prescription herbal diet pill does not block any fat soluble vitamins you ingest.

Mechanisms of action

Prescription diet pill drugs operate through one or more of the following mechanisms:

• Increase your body's metabolism.
• Suppression of your appetite.
• Interference with your body's ability to absorb specific nutrients in food. For example, Orlistat blocks fat breakdown and thereby prevents fat absorption. The over the counter fiber supplements glucomannan and guar gum have been used for the purpose of inhibiting digestion and lowering caloric absorption.
• Anorectics (also known as anorexigenics) are primarily intended to suppress the appetite, but most of the drugs in this class also act as stimulants, for example, dexedrine.