Definition of “work” for the purpose of this thread:
Will allow those eating sensibly and with a moderate regiment of physical activity to lose more weight than without the drug, more quickly and with less hunger issues. Also, it will not cause healthy problems worse than being 20 pounds overweight.
IOW: Not looking for a “Miracle Pill,” nor do I wish to die.
Are you talking about OTC diet pills or doctor prescribed ones?
The OTC ones often cause you to feel hyped up and while they may temporarily help you lose weight what do you think happens as soon as you stop taking them?
Exercise and a good (low fat) diet are what most doctors recommend to lose or maintain your weight. And you should see your doctor before ever taking OTC diet pills since there may be a sound medical reason why you shouldn’t be taking them.
“Diet pills” covers an enormous range of products, from the completely useless to the highly effective and moderately dangerous. Do you have something specific in mind?
In general, though, diet pills are intended to make you feel less hungry for a given amount of food. So, if two identical people were to cut back their food intake by the same amount, and do the same amount of excercise, the one who took the pills wouldn’t lose weight any more quickly - they’d just feel less hungry than their twin. And have less money than their twin who didn’t buy the pills in the first place.
Most of them wind up having gross side effects (such as death) once they’ve been on the market for a while.
There’s a new one in the works - Rimonabant - that shows some promising results in research.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20051117/HDRUG17/TPHealth/
Basically, over a year, coupled with healthy eating and exercise, participants on the drug lost an average of 19 lbs more than those not on the drug.
YMMV
Alot of substances work for weight loss. But finding a substance that
Is alot harder. Cimetidine causes weight loss but it blocks one of the major enzyme pathways the body uses to break down chemicals, potentially leading to dangerous buildups of other chemicals in the body (yet they still sell it OTC). Various catecholamine boosters like wellbutrin, phentermine & ECA work but they can cause damage. ECA is shown to cause about 2lbs more weight loss a month than diet & execise alone, but I think it can lead to heart damage. There are endless other weird drugs (thyroid, DNP, PGF2, various alpha/beta agonists, usnic acid, etc) but they are all bad news. I don’t know if meridia, phentermine and wellbutrin pose any long term risk.
Offhand the only drugs I can think of that would fit your definition are xenical, meridia, wellbutrin and that is about it.
You can also look into eating more fiber and more protein (especially casein protein). Studies have shown diets high in fiber and protein cause more weight loss than diets without them.
So a high fiber, high protein diet combined with xenical and/or wellbutrin is all I can think of.
If there were a diet pill that really worked, someone would be making a billion dollars a day, trumpeting it in every medium, and watching in triumph as people got thin.
Until that happens, the answer to the OP is no.
Ephederine will boost the metabolism and kill hunger at the same time. Used judiciously for short periods it can be very effective. It has always been available in Canada but I believe it has only recently been re-allowed on the U.S. market. I believe it wasn’t so much health concerns that were responsible for it being taken off the market but rather concerns about its use as a methamphetamine precursor.
There’s a really good forum that might be able to help with diet/diet pill/excercise questions–it’s calories per hour dot com (written that way only because I don’t know if putting in a link would be appropriate) but it’s cool and there are some knowledgeable people there-- but to answer your question, they probably do work but along with that goes a whole lifestyle change–taking the stairs instead of the elevator, chewing your food longer, heck even taking your cellphone off of the t9 predictive text mode–that’s right, you have to type in every letter…kidding
A regular multi-vitamin pill will help you lose weight. However, for it to work, you have to walk for 15 minutes before taking the pill, and walk for 15 minutes after taking the pill. It’s very effective.
It is not considered a diet pill, but I have been taking metformin for about 8 months and I have been very slowly losing weight without changing my eating habits.
Now the action of metformin has been described as inhibiting the release of glucose by the liver and is prescribed for mild diabetes when the insulin level is high but the liver does not react by releasing less glucose. This makes no real sense to me since why am I losing weight if my liver releases less glucose. Incidentally, mild weight loss is listed as one of the side-effects.
I asked my daughter-in-law, a physician, about this, specifically whether there is an increase in the basal metabolism and she said there wasn’t but was not able to give any explanation other than it is known to cause mild weight loss.
Amphetamines work wonders. Cause psychosis, but c’mon, you’ll look great.
[/sarcasm off]
You forgot clenbuterol and nicotine gum. Otherwise, that’s a pretty complete list.
Thats not necessarily true. Several studies have shown cimetidine causes appetite suppression, leading to weight loss. However cimetidine also blocks the P450 enzyme pathway, leading to a buildup of chemicals in the body. There have been studies on wellbutrin, topamax and a variety of other drugs too. Besides we already have at least 3 drugs for weight loss on the market. Meridia, phentermine and xenical.