Different diet pills: The facts

With obesity becoming an ever worsening problem, dieters are looking for new ways to lose weight. Sadly, for many people the traditional weight loss methods of a calorie controlled diet and exercise do not appear to be effective. With the increase of diet pills on the market, do they work and if so which is the best tone. Read this article to find out more.

The theory behind diet pills

Weight loss Weight loss results from burning off excess calories, 3,500 calories per pound of fat to be precise. Consequently, a dieter who is 20lbs. overweight needs to burn off 70,000 calories. Atypically, this is achieved by eating a low calorie diet combined with physical exercise. However, for many dieters, they are extremely obese, plus their metabolism is slow. This means that their dieting efforts have to be relentless and even then, weight losses appear to be exceedingly slow. Theories The theory behind diet pills is that they can assist the dieter by achieving one of the following: - Inhibit appetite
- Increase the metabolism
- Interfere with the body’s ability to process some foods, such as fats Are diet pills effective? First of all, many of the pills which have been released to the market such as Sibutramine for example, have been withdrawn from the market because of negative side effects. The problem with most diet pills is that they work by changing the chemical balance of the brain, which in turn produces negative side effects. Looking through the range of diet drugs available, most fall into this category. Orlistat The only one which appears to buck the trend is Orlistat (also known as Xenical or Alli). The reason why Orlistat is largely free from negative symptoms is because it does not affect the brain. Rather, it works on the digestion of fats. It blocks the absorption of triglycerides, which are bad fats. Despite being capable of blocking up to 30% of fat absorption, in real world terms, this equates to around 100 calories in a 2000 calorie diet (based on the dieter eating the recommended 15% fat intake daily). This is hardly an effective pill! Natural diet pills Natural pills are also available, with Hoodia being the most effective one. Hoodia works by reducing appetite. That said, there is insufficient evidence to affirm how effective it really is.

No magic remedies

While a low calorie diet and exercise are not very effective for many people, drugs do not appear to be the magic remedy either. Ultimately, there appears to be no magic panacea, rather each dieter has to experiment and see for themselves what works for them.