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Prescription Weight Loss Drugs - Health IssuesNatural weight loss supplements aren't the only ones with health risks. Prescription weight loss drugs also have unhealthy side effects. First off, evidence demonstrates that prescription diet drugs don't work any better than dieting. Within four years, weight lost with diet pills is regained, and then some, said Paul Ernsberger, Ph.D., associate professor of Medicine, Pharmacology and Neuroscience, Case Western Reserve School of Medicine. And the side effects of prescription weight loss drugs can be anything but healthy. Researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health found widely prescribed diet pills resulted in irreversible loss of brain nerve terminals, possibly resulting in depression, memory loss, cognitive and sleep problems, and psychiatric disorders, according to a Sept. 26, 1997, HHS press release. The fen-phen weight loss drug cocktail caused an estimated 1.8 million users to develop abnormal echocardiograms and the pills were the likely cause of defective heart valves, presenting "an unacceptable risk." Long-term controlled studies are ongoing. The new weight loss drug Meridia has been shown to raise blood pressure, increase heart rate and was recommended only for short-term use in patients without risk for heart disease or diabetes, the very risks most sedentary obese patients have. In exchange for those possible side effects, weight loss patients studied lost a mere 7 pounds more than the control group eating the same diet, and they regained any weight lost upon stopping the medicine.
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