People are always looking for a quick, easy fix, and the drug companies are ever so happy to accommodate them. Wouldn?t it be nice if we could just swallow a pill and solve the obesity epidemic that has close to 70 percent of the U.S. population overweight? Unfortunately, if you believe in this fantasy it is likely that the sugar and processed foods has seriously affected your ability to think rationally.
Yesterday the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen renewed its call for U.S. regulators to ban Abbott Laboratories Inc.'s diet drug Meridia, saying it had seen links to further deaths. Since its March 2002 petition for a ban that cited 19 heart-related deaths since Meridia's 1998 U.S. launch, Public Citizen said it had looked at another 18 months of data and found an additional 30 cardiovascular deaths in people using the drug.
I continue to be surprised by how many people are looking for an easy drug solution to weight loss. How quickly people forget. It was only five years ago that the FDA pulled fen-phen from the market for causing irreversible heart damage in many of those who took it.
Fortunately, there are things you can do to lose weight and feel good naturally:
Public Citizen September 3, 2003