Freedom from the Diet Trap: Slim for Life. Jason Vale

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СКАЧАТЬ them. At least it was down to a professional to make a qualified judgement as to whether you should be given such pills and whether the chance of any adverse drug reaction, in their opinion, would be outweighed by what they hope will be a reduction in the patient’s weight. However, as from the spring of 2009, the way with which people get hold of some weight loss drugs will all change. For the first time in history in the UK you will be able to buy the first ever ‘over the counter’ weight loss drug – Alli. No prescription – no doctor’s appointment – no assessment, just walk into your local chemist and get your drug. Given that we are in a world where thin is the new black, I feel the decision to license this drug as an OTC (Over The Counter), will prove to be one of the most reckless in the history of medicine. The potential for ‘drug’ abuse here is on a scale as yet unknown. After Alli was launched in the US in 2007 it sold 75 million in the first six months alone, which gives us some kind of idea of what’s in store here. I would also bet this will not be the only OTC weight loss drug either; once this comes along the floodgates will open and getting hold of your weight loss drug will become as normal as buying an aspirin (by the time you read this book it may already have happened). The dangers to anyone with a shred of common sense are painfully obvious, especially as you can also buy these pills on the Net too. Teenagers for one will no doubt get hold of these and chances are, with no one checking to see how many people are buying and taking, will take much more than the recommended dose in the delusion they will lose more by taking more (no doubt many adults will also do the same!). Losing weight is one of the biggest obsessions teenagers and many adults have and to produce a drug that anyone can easily buy without any checks with a promise of weight loss is unwise to say the least.

      What’s crazy is both the FDA in the US and now the FSA (Food Standards Agency) in the UK, gave the drug the all clear to be sold over the counter, expressing the benefits far outweigh any possible risk to health. But in order for this drug to be cleared the FDA and FSA would have had to come to the conclusion that the drug is both safe and effective – the criteria all approved drugs have to pass. But, ignoring the moral issue of having a weight loss drug as an OTC and God knows how many people who may well abuse it, I question it on both the other fronts. Firstly it stops the absorption of some fat soluble vitamins like A, D, E, and K. The body is such a finely tuned machine that you simply cannot brush aside the effects this will have on the overall health of the body; effects which may not become apparent for many years. On top of this, the drug works by stopping the body from absorbing some of the fat you eat in food. This sounds like good news, but a) it’s not necessarily fat that makes you fat (as I will illustrate a little later) and b) it is essential the body does absorb fat. (They aren’t called ‘essential fatty acids’ for nothing after all). Also the actual weight loss effectiveness of the drug has been brought into question too. There was even one report that showed an average of just one pound of weight loss in an entire month. A loss hardly worth risking a bit of random anal leakage for, which, just so you know, is one of the potential side effects of this particular weight loss drug. In fact, GlaxoSmithKline recommends that Alli users wear dark pants and keep spare clothes available at work until they ‘have a sense of any treatment effects’. Yes, such are the chances of ‘steatorrhea’ – oily, loose stools – and fecal incontinence, frequent or urgent bowel movements and flatulence, that the makers suggest you wear some dark pants just in case something happens unexpectedly. Seriously, is it me or has the world gone completely bonkers? Clearly there have also been many studies with Alli that have shown significantly more weight loss than the 1 lb (0.45 kg) in a month I quoted a second ago, but is having to wear dark pants just in case something foul unexpectedly comes out of your bum really worth it?

      I could write an entire book on just weight loss drugs alone, but the point I want to illustrate is once again what on earth do any of these pills do to get to the cause of the excess weight problem? What can they possibly do to stop someone’s desire for certain foods? It may stop someone eating certain amounts of fat through fear of a sudden ‘soiling of their pants’, but what on earth does it do to stop the excess consumption of refined sugar – the biggest cause of excess bodily fat there is? What does it do to stop them even wanting fatty foods but just not having them through fear? Even if someone does lose weight taking any weight loss drug, if nothing has been done to change the way that person perceives what they eat or the way they eat, then what on earth stops them piling the weight back on when they stop taking the pill? Doesn’t this work in exactly the same way as the ‘fad diets’ many in the dietetic and medical profession slag off so readily? Aren’t these over the counter diet pills a ‘quick fix’ solution? Once the ‘quick fix’ is over, it’s back to the same pattern of behaviour which caused the problem in the first place. Once again, excess bodily fat is a physical symptom of addictive psychological problem. With that in mind, please rest assured that in my opinion there will never be a weight loss pill that can possibly send you to the utopia of a Food Freedom mentality and so the land of the thin.

      Shortly before going to press the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) recommended the suspension of the marketing authorization of Accomplia, as Rimonabant is known as in Europe, because its ‘benefits no longer outweigh its risks’. This despite the fact that the drug was cleared by NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) for use as a last resort on the NHS only four months earlier.

      Under The Knife

      People’s desperation to get to grips with their weight and health doesn’t simply stop at radical, nutritionally unsound, diets or suspect diet pills. Going under the surgeon’s knife is getting more and more popular. In the United States alone, 177,600 operations were performed in 2007, according to the American Society for Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery. One of the most common operations and now probably the most widely talked about is gastric bypass surgery. This works by making your stomach smaller and removing part of your bowel to make your digestive system shorter. This was also the operation Fern Britton famously had and it’s not for the faint hearted. Personally I feel Fern Britton was given a hard time when it came out her dramatic weight loss was not simply down to diet and exercise, as she had apparently claimed, but rather surgery. I don’t think some realize how low and desperate someone has to get to even contemplate surgery for weight loss. Gastric bypass surgery can be potentially life threatening and is usually used in extreme cases only. However, due to what they deem as the ‘success’ of such operations, the plan is to extend this ‘opportunity’ to those who aren’t necessarily morbidly obese (large chance of dying as a result of their weight), but just obese. Please understand that the way obesity and morbid obesity is measured at the moment is using an antiquated system known as BMI (Body Mass Index). This ridiculous system doesn’t take into account muscle mass and is completely inaccurate in many cases. This system even shows the extremely muscular and well-toned rugby player Jonny Wilkinson as obese! Pretty soon you will have slightly overweight people (who according to the BMI scale are obese) getting this surgery. It’s also worth knowing that we are already in a position where many children are now going under the knife for obesity, yes kids.

      Once again though I have the same question – does this treat the cause or the symptom? Unlike drug pills I can actually see an argument for some types of weight loss surgery. There would, I believe without question, be some people who would be dead now without it. However, this type of treatment is getting more and more popular and for some, far from being the last resort, it can be seen as the ‘easy’ solution and one of the first things they try. Easy is not the word I would use for this operation, stomach bypass or any similar procedures. Remember, these operations don’t stop you wanting certain foods; you just can’t eat as much of them. So you still want to, but you can’t. This, for many, is a form of living mental torture. Many get around the problem by simply blending a load of junk food with some liquid and drinking it instead. So they are still often having their sugar and refined fat fix, just in a different form or chewing the same crap very slowly. This is why there are some people who despite operations like this, still have problems losing weight. One lady lost just 1 lb (0.45 kg) in the seven weeks following her stomach bypass op. She spent £6,000, went through the nightmare of being under the surgeon’s knife to have her stomach strangled, yet still has СКАЧАТЬ