what do you think
 

about the new diet pill the FDA approved for non-prescriptive use?
OTC orlistat
B

I know nothing about it. Could you link to it or something?

Taken from http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/d...r/a601244.html

Orlistat is used with a low-calorie diet to help you lose weight and to maintain your weight after weight loss. Orlistat is used in patients with a certain weight who may also have high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, or heart disease.

Orlistat is in a class of drugs called lipase inhibitors. It works in your intestines, where it blocks some of the fat you eat from being absorbed and disgested. This undigested fat is then removed in your bowel movements (BM).

Follow the diet program your doctor has given you. You should evenly divide your daily intake of fat, carbohydrates, and protein over three main meals. If orlistat is taken with a meal very high in fat (30% total daily calories from fat), you may experience more side effects from the medication.

Orlistat blocks your body's uptake of some fat-soluble vitamins and beta carotene. Therefore, when you use orlistat you should take a daily multivitamin supplement that contains vitamins A, E, K, and beta-carotene. Take the vitamin once a day, 2 hours before or 2 hours after taking orlistat, or take the vitamin at bedtime.

To help you get started on reducing the fat in your diet to about 30%, read the labels on all the foods you buy. While you are taking orlistat, you should avoid foods that have more than 30% fat. When eating meat, poultry (chicken) or fish, eat only 2 or 3 ounces (about the size of a deck of cards). Choose lean cuts of meat and remove the skin from poultry. Fill up your meal plate with more grains, fruits, and vegetables. Replace whole-milk products with nonfat or 1% milk and reduced- or low-fat dairy items. Cook with less fat. Use vegetable oil spray when cooking. Salad dressings; many baked items; and prepackaged, processed, and fast foods are usually high in fat. Use the low- or non-fat versions of these foods and/or cut back on serving sizes. When dining out, ask how foods are prepared and request that they be prepared with little or no added fat.

Side Effects:
* oily, spotting BMs
* gas with discharge
* urgent need to have a BM
* oily or fatty stools
* an oily discharge
* increased number of BMs
* inability to control BMs
* orange or brown color of a BM
* stomach pain
* irregular menstrual periods




*cough*.... erm.... sounds okay, I guess.... oily bowel movements and blocked vitamins? common sense diet tips combined with a pill to make me lose control of my bowel movements? WOOHOO

(k, I know I'm being crass, but it really sounds kind of... useless. If you have to follow a reduced-fat, healthy diet while taking it anyway, well... I don't know, it seems superfluous.)

This is what I learned from the Today show:

- Costs approximately $2 a day
- If through diet and exercise you lose 5 pounds it can help you lose an additional 2
- Can cause diahrea (the "guinea pig" man on the show said often during the day he would have to restrain himself from running to the bathroom, this happens more often when you eat fatty foods)

It sounds.... delightful....

However, if that's what motivates someone to eat better and work out, then to each his own. I know that a 7 pound loss is more motivating than a 5 pound loss and a 5 pound loss is more motivating than a 3 lb loss. I think under the *intended* circumstance, it is merely one tool to help someone understand that they can do it. Hopefully,

However, with all things like this, many do not use it for its exact intention. I did hear on the Today Show that when faced with a fattening food choice, the participants just didn't take the pill and ate the fatty foods.

Now when do we get a self-restraint pill?

Oh jeez, when that comes out i'll be the first in line... :lol:
(re: the self-restraint pill, of course, not the gives-you-the-runs pill)

i don't know. i am always hesitant about diet pills. i hear they are suing trimspa now for false advertising (?)

i feel like either they don't work, they are too expensive, and the second i stop taking them i will gain all of the weight back plus more.

Suing trimspa? Does that mean I can get my money back?! LOL.

Speaking of trimspa (although no relation to the pill I believe), according to CNN Ana Nicole Smith died

Omg, have you guys seen those Lipozene commercials? They make me sick! The super-solicitious, dripping-with-sympathy spokeswoman saying (verbatim) "It's not your fault! Excess fat builds up over time with having kids, stress at work..."

Yes, let's just feed the "I'm a victim and need an easy way out" mentality in weight loss, why don't we?

I just saw that! I was telling Melody it's probably because of the trimspa. Glad I stopped taking that. I would probably be dead now also... 0_o

Makes me think that those of us that are currently following a fairly low fat diet will not benefit much. We already have cut the fat--will it really block the absorption of the rest of the fat that we do eat? What about the good fats that we eat on purpose--seems self defeating in that way.

I do not think that this pill falls into the same "diet pill" category as TrimSpa and all those. This one is FDA approved and has been proven to work.

Exactly my thoughts....so I don't even bother. I also wonder what kind of effects it has on your body later in life. I don't think they have been testing these for 20+ years, maybe a couple at the most.

Ughhh, I have read horror stories about the drug you mentioned at the beginning of this post. The thing about it is that it FORCES you to cut out all fats, because if you eat too much of those fats which the pill keeps your body from processing, you won't get off the toilet all day!!

Personally I think it's a silly concept... if I were to take a weight-loss drug, it would be one proven to curb appetite, not to make food go through my body unprocessed and come out of my backside without my permission. Hahaha, okay sorry to be so graphic, but that's what I think of it!

I actually DID try such an appetite pill... "Acomplia," which was suggested by a doctor of mine whose advice I value greatly. It is not yet sold in the US, (they are working on FDA approval), but I got it in Germany. The results? My appetite WAS greatly lowered... in fact, I really had no interest in food for a while, and ate out of necessity, not really hunger. The only thing is that my stomach is VERY sensitive, and within 2 weeks I had bad stomach cramps (I get them a few times a year anyway, but the Accomplia aggravated them). So I stopped taking it.

You guys can read tons of articles on it here. As a warning to anyone who may try it though: aside from my own stomach troubles with it (due I think more to my own sensitivity than to common side effects), my dad tried taking it, and he said it did NOT curb his appetite... if anything he claimed it made him want to eat MORE. So it varies from person to person, and the drug was very expensive to get overseas: quite an investment for something that may not work for you.

But just getting it out there, it certainly curbed my appetite, so it's no hoax. But with the kinds of stomach cramps I get that keep me in bed for days? Not worth it. I'd rather just eat veggies to keep my hunger down between meals.

interesting interesting - I myself didnt' know too much about it - but now you have all taught me so much more! thank you!
i am not sure if I would try it - I agree I would rather have the stop reachign for that thing you are not hungry for and stop dreaming about food pill - I think that would be much better. if only :) maybe hypnotis is the answer :)

I agree with what has been said on this thread. With a pill you just don't know the side effects. Maybe it works short term and then you gain all the weight back plus more, maybe it curbs your appetite, maybe it makes you more hungry, maybe it bothers your tummy, just so many maybes.

I just saw the commercial for Lipozene. Does anyone know if it works? The majority of my weight is in "belly fat". I don't eat much food, but I do LOVE my sweets...therein lies the problem. Exercise is a bad word to me. I do love to walk though when my plantar faschiatias isn't acting up. Maybe at 59, soon to be 60 in April, I should just be happy about the way I look. I'm about 50 lbs overweight and all in the upper half of my body. Thanks for any thoughts you may have. Sharon

I´ve used it, here in Chile you can buy it without medical prescription and at first everybody was using it, but it´s not very useful (I´ve used it and can tell) and it´s pretty expensive, at least here.
For people who eat a lot of fat it may be useful because they don´t absorb part of it (but they have to run to the bathroom several times a day and they "leak" oily stuff.. sorry for the terminology but my english is not very good)
People who have already cut part of the fat don´t experience much benefits, but maybe can be used on your cheat meal/day.
I feel it was made for people who want to loose without making efforts, but side effects are horrible!!

If anyone wants more info feel free to PM me!

This sounds similar to what my father, mother, and sister all took (or are still taking).

My mother used this to help her lose weight and she lost a significant amount and kept it off. She stuck to a low-fat diet and exercised. She didn't experience any of the side effects and was satisfied with her results. She sort of stopped taking them during the holiday season. She said she was going to "maintain" for the month, then go back to taking them regularly.

My father is using these, and has been since my mother started. He's lost even more weight and is keeping it off, and still losing. But sometimes he's eaten meals that contained a little too much fat and therefore he's experienced those slightly disturbing side effects. He didn't go into much detail, but he said it's happen a few times.

My sister took these a few years ago apparently. They were still prescription back then and she was recommended to take them. She was the kind of person who expected them to be a "Magic Pill" and didn't change her lifestyle at ALL. She took the pills, but still went to McDonalds daily and sat at the computer all day with no exercise. So, not surprisingly, she had MANY experiences with those side effects. MANY. She said that she was sitting at the computer one day and stood up for a minute, and realized she had "gone" all over herself, if you catch my drift. She said she didn't even know it happened. And that wasn't the only time it happened to her.

Those are 3 different experiences from 3 different people. I guess you need to understand that it's not a Magic Pill and that you DO need to change your lifestyle. You need to eat smaller portions and less fat. You need to exercise and take care of yourself. The BM movements and oily discharge happen when you eat foods that have WAY too much fat in them. The pills makes 1/2 the fat basically go right through you...so if you eat something that's very high in fat, you can expect a LOT of fat to start coming out of your body soon. Usually that's in the form of grease/oil. And sometimes you can't control it.

If you're the kind of person who gives into temptations and indulges in candy bars often during your diets...this is NOT the kind of pill for you. Unless you want to be going in your pants. But if you're the kind of dieter who can stick to a strict regimen of eating less fat and getting more exercise, this could potentially be a great diet supplement for you.

Oh! And a side note: my mother started taking it on a weekend (actually it was a long weekend, 3 days). That way she knew how her body was going to react to the pill. She didn't know if she'd have those lovely "side effects" or not. Luckily in those 3 days she learned how the pill effected her body and was more confident to take them and be eating in public and/or at work.

Before I read this post, I had never heard of OTC Orlistat. However, after reading britomart’s post, IMHO, if you are already doing everything that the guidelines for this drug tell you to do, then you really don’t need the drug. You just need the same thing that everyone needs in order for their healthy lifestyle to succeed – a commitment to completely change your lifestyle, coupled with patience and diligence.

However, from reading leanmoomercows’ post, it sounds as though this pill could benefit some people. Everyone is different. I’ve never taken pills or bought any diet related products, and I’ve lost all of the weight that I wanted to and then some. I’m not saying that I’m perfect (by far *lol*), just that it’s possible to do it without throwing a lot of money into it.