Word: orlistat
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...friend told her about an experimental diet drug being tested at nearby Baylor University, and Smith signed up. For two years, she and thousands of other overweight patients maintained a low-fat diet, exercised--and swallowed a medication called orlistat three times a day. "My clothes started fitting a lot looser after a month," she says. Today Smith is down to 150 lbs., her prepregnancy weight. Not only that, but she's maintaining the loss and hopes to drop even more...
...study released last week, obese dieters taking the drug Orlistat lost more weight (19 lbs.) in the first year than dieters taking a placebo (13 lbs.) The drug also helped them keep the weight off. Side effects include cramps and "fecal incontinence." The drug awaits FDA approval in the U.S. but is now being sold in Europe...
Americans looking for another quick weight-loss fix may soon be tempted by orlistat, a new diet drug that's nearing approval by the Food and Drug Administration. Hopes previously pinned on Redux and the drug combination Fen-Phen were dashed by revelations that they can cause heart valve damage. But a study published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association says that orlistat has no such life-threatening side effects. Where Redux and Fen-Phen worked in the brain to suppress appetite, orlistat, made by Hoffman-La Roche, blocks the absorption of some fat in the intestines...
...overweight nation shouldn't clebrate the wonder drug just yet. The study, which combined orlistat usage with a modified diet, showed only extremely modest weight loss. Participants who received the drug lost an average of only six and a half pounds more than those who took placebos; however, they did have better luck keeping the weight off. "It's not the magic bullet," says TIME health columnist Christine Gorman. "But literally every pound counts in terms of cholesterol and other health risks. Regaining only 35 percent of their lost weight is significant because regaining is so discouraging." And this drug...
Meanwhile, competition is heating up. Last month an FDA advisory panel recommended approval of a drug called orlistat that works on the gut instead of the brain--reducing caloric intake by blocking the body's ability to absorb fat. Orlistat has its problems--its side effects include intestinal leakage. That doesn't mean orlistat will not be a big seller, at least at first. But if folks buy it expecting weight-loss miracles, they are bound to be as disappointed next year as Redux users are today...