Everybody is excited, it seems, about the new weight loss drug Alli, which will soon be sold over the counter (no prescription necessary). An FDA review panel gave it the thumbs up, saying it thought the benefits of the drug outweigh the risks to health. Alli is based on the prescription drug Orlistat, which has been on the market for a while and has been giving people diarrhea, anal leakage and other entertaining side effects for quite some time. I’m sure we’ll all hear more about these side effects as word about this weight loss drug spreads. Let’s take a second look at this drug. Why did the FDA review panel give it the thumbs up? Is this drug safe and effective? Those are the two criteria upon which these decisions are supposed to be made.

Well, it turns out that Alli is just barely effective in clinical trials. Patients who took this drug lost about 1 pound a month. That’s hardly any weight loss that all. That’s the same amount of weight loss that you could experience simply by eating about a thousand fewer calories a week, which comes down to just a few cans of soda per week. By the way, that weight loss reversed itself as soon as people went off the drug, meaning they gained it right back. Still, the drug is being heralded as a potential blockbuster because so many Americans are desperate to lose weight and it seems that they will do almost anything to accomplish that goal.

My question is, will they tolerate soiled underwear to accomplish it? That’s one of the most common side effects of this drug. People actually spotted their clothes with uncontrollable anal discharges. I don’t know about you, but to me that’s not worth losing a pound a month. I think losing your self respect might be more valuable than that, but I guess that’s up to each person to decide. I wonder how this works when dating? Do you wear, like, diapers?

Blocking healthy fats

However, it’s not the side effects that I’m most concerned about with this drug. What I’m actually concerned about is the potential harm this drug might cause. This drug works by absorbing fat; that way, when people eat fats like those found in milk or cheese or even salad dressings, this drug binds with those fats and carries them on out of the system where they can’t be digested. But at the same time, this drug also blocks all those essential fats that we need to be healthy. Those acids include omega-3 fatty acids, which is why you’re hearing about all the benefits of eating oily fish like salmon. But people who are taking this drug are inevitably blocking the absorption of these essential fatty acids as well as blocking the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins that go along with them. Some of those vitamins are extremely important to human health. The fat-soluble vitamins include vitamin E, vitamin A and vitamin D.

It is vitamin D that I am most concerned about, because right now vitamin D deficiencies are widespread across Western populations, especially those in the United States. A deficiency in vitamin D directly promotes a numbers of serious diseases including diabetes, depression, osteoporosis, schizophrenia, breast cancer, prostate cancer and even gum disease. For people who are already overfed and undernourished, taking a fat-blocking pill that will reduce the absorption of vitamin D seems like dietary insanity to me. It makes me wonder about the priorities of the FDA, too. Are they sure the benefits of this drug outweigh the risks?

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