What are the dangers of diet pills?

Filed in archive Diet and Nutrition on June 8, 2007

I have to say honestly that I've never used diet pills in my life. As I'm a true workaholic I can't relate to losing weight without sweating and changing eating habits - that is, get something for nothing. But, as I thought about it, and checked some of the newspaper ads, TV commercials and never ending internet pop-ups, I couldn't help but wonder who are all these people who buy those drugs?

But, I needn't have searched far, because it turned out that one of my acquaintances buys every new diet pill product that hits the market. This girl who I find very good looking because of her shiny black hair and really sexy because of her curves, finds herself overweight by false glossy-paper-magazine-standards. So she buys diet pills and takes them in even larger amounts than prescribed on the bottle, but, as she admits, with very little success. When pills work, they work for only a short amount of time, and soon after she gains the weight again.

She doesn't want to eat less or exercise more. She wants a quick fix of her problem, neglecting the fact that eating urges, weight loss and gaining and appetite are still not fully clear even to the scientists.

Today's diet pills promise weight loss, fast, keeping quiet that none of the promised effects have been properly documented, researched and approved for use. Weight loss pills are sometimes called anorectics, some of them (containing L-carnitine, chitosan, CLA, fiber and guarana to name a few) have no clear proof of usefulness, so the biggest danger in taking those is that a person has false beliefs and does not change her lifestyle.

On the more dangerous side of diet pills are those containing amphetamines and its derivates (Phentermine, Diethylpropion, Phendimetrazine, Benzphetamine, Sibutramine, Rimonabant, Oxyntomodulin and Fluoxetine), used to suppress hunger, elevate the body temperature and boost up metabolism. They also cause liver, heart, brain and psyche damage. You can still buy many of them online or at drugstores, even though many serious conditions and even sudden deaths can be related to using and abusing such substances.

My point is: diet pills can be dangerous. Dear girls, don't fall for the before-and-after pictures illustrating diet pill ads. Trust your logic: is it sane to believe that a pill can make all those excess calories you take in go away?