Weight Loss Pills and Nutritional Supplements
Posted on April 6, 2008
» Filed Under Nutrition, Weight Loss |
Weight Loss Pills & Supplements
While some supplements have turned out to be a boon for consumers looking for alternative approaches to health concerns, when it comes to weight loss, dietary supplements have been a big, fat bust.
I’m Dr. Caroline Cederquist, giving you The Skinny on Your Health.
Since the ban on ephedra, an herbal stimulant implicated in dozens of deaths, supplement manufacturers have ramped up their efforts to promote other treatments.
But since the supplement industry is unregulated, consumers had little help in evaluating marketers’ claims of safety or effectiveness. Until now.
No less than Harvard University Medical School has just completed a massive, comprehensive study of nearly two dozen supplements marketed to help with weight loss.
The results were disappointing.
Of the 21 supplements studied, including popular products like chitosan, guar gum, spirulina and hydroxycitric acid, only one was actually shown to be clearly effective in helping with weight loss. That one? The banned ephedra.
So until further study proves otherwise, it looks like we still have a complex problem, and no supplement solution.
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Rimonabant - Not All That
Rimonabant is a new weight loss drug that has not yet even made it to the market, but it’s already made its way into plot lines of TV shows and punch lines of late night comics.
And here we go again. Whenever a new medication comes out to help with weight loss, the true hope tends to get lost in the hype.
The hope of rimonabant is that it seems to suppress appetite in a new way while also aiding smoking cessation, tying together two of the thorniest lifestyle habits people want to change.
But in early studies, it hasn’t been any more miraculous than anything before. Of a couple thousand women whose average weight was 220 pounds, their average weight loss on rimonabant was 14 pounds.
Now, mice on rimonabant ate less and lost up to 20 percent of their body weight, so that’s good news if you’re a fat mouse.
But if you’re a person with a weight problem, don’t wait for it. Keep trying to eat better, eat less, exercise more and see your doctor.Dieting is Easier When You Love the Food. Delicious meals shipped to your door. It’s a proven strategy that works!
Ghrelin Potential - A hunger hormone that we can control at will?
Scientists and dieters alike often wish we could find that holy grail of diet research - a hunger hormone that we can control at will!
Of course, the mechanisms of hunger are complex and no one chemical component will ever turn out to be the silver bullet.
But work with a recently discovered hormone called ghrelin is certainly raising some new possibilities.
Ghrelin is actually produced in the stomach and plays a role in sending those ‘FEED ME!’ signals to the brain. After we’ve eaten, grhelin drops notably.
Except in people who’ve recently lost a lot of weight through dieting! In these folks, high levels of ghrelin continue to circulate in the blood for much longer, like marauding hunger messages seeking to undermine our diets!
That may help explain why it’s so hard to maintain our weight loss.
So could we artificially REDUCE our ghrelin levels? Or for people who’ve lost APPETITE because of health conditions, could ghrelin levels be INCREASED to prevent them wasting away?
It’s worth looking into, and scientists are.
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Got Calcium?
People who consume diets high in dairy foods seem to have less trouble with weight problems overall, and some researchers think it’s the calcium.
The idea is that calcium somehow inhibits fat development. A Purdue University study involved women on diets of less than 1900 calories per day over a two year period.
Those whose daily nutritional intake included more than 780 mg of calcium either maintained, or reduced, their percentage of body fat. But with the same overall calories, those who had less daily calcium intake actually gained body fat over the course of the study.
Of course, dairy foods aren’t the only source of dietary calcium, but non-dairy calcium sources, even supplements, did not produce the same weight control effect as the dairy calcium.
Researchers are still looking for a clear explanation, but while we’re waiting, it couldn’t hurt to have a nice glass of milk.
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Magnesium Effect on Diabetes Risk
Anyone who grew up with Popeye knows that eating spinach will help you fight bad guys. Now new research is showing that it also helps fight diabetes.
The research shows a protective effect of dietary magnesium - which is found in spinach - against diabetes. Good magnesium sources include other leafy green vegetables, whole grains and nuts, and, believe it or not, coffee.
In two large studies over several years, researchers found that participants who had the highest magnesium intake had much lower incidence of developing diabetes than those with the least magnesium intake, up to 34 percent lower!
Even better news: they also found that the protective effects of magnesium in the diet were actually magnified in those who need that protection most: people who are already overweight!
They haven’t figured out why that is, but they’re looking at magnesium’s affect on glucose tolerance.
Whatever the reason, it makes a compelling argument for anyone built more like Bluto to start eating more like Popeye!
Weight Loss Drug Targets Both Weight Loss and Smoking
Talk about killing two birds with one stone! It’s no silver bullet, but there’s a new medication that takes aim at America’s two hardest-to-beat health hazards - smoking and overweight - all in one little pill.
It’s one of those “so-good-you-dare-not-hope” situations, but in studies presented to the American College of Cardiologists, the drug - called rimonabant - helped overweight subjects lose an average of 20 pounds over a year, compared to only 5 pounds for subjects on a placebo.
When used for smokers, rimonabant actually DOUBLED the number of those who kicked the habit.
But here’s the real kicker: the smokers who quit with rimonabant actually lost an average of one pound, while those on a placebo typically experienced that weight gain everyone fears.
These were limited studies, and the drug is due for more detailed clinical trials.
But whether you wrestle with weight or smoking, or you’ve got the double-whammy to deal with, the researchers warned that rimonabant won’t be much help if someone isn’t also willing to make lifestyle changes to beat their health problems.
Dr. Caroline J. Cederquist, M.D., weight loss program - - It’s a proven strategy that works! Losing Weight Has Never Tasted So Good!
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» Filed Under Nutrition, Weight Loss Tags: Tags:appetite, Diabetes, Nutrition, nutritional supplements, smokers, weight gain, whole grains
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I could not agree more with these findings, weight loss supplements just don’t work, they are just made to look like it. The only way to truly lose weight effectively is through good eating habits, and rigorous exercise.