New Diet Pill Safe and Effective for Weight Loss Success?

The Associated Press released an announcement that an experimental diet pill has helped people lose weight--about half the people who tried it lost "some" weight and were able to keep it off for a year. This new pill theoretically does not cause the heart problems that earlier pills such as fen-phen did, even though it acts on the same pathways.

Most diet pills are either not safe at all or can only be taken safely short-term. Is this one really any different?

Before people get too excited about this pill, realize it is still in the experimental phase and it helped people lose "at least 5 percent of their body weight over a year"...

Let's look at that and see if that really amounts to weight loss success.

If you weight 300 pounds and lose 5% of your body weight that is 15 pounds. That's right a whopping 15 pounds!

Until they PROVE that there are no side effects...like irreversible heart damage, problems with digestion and bowel leakage, problems that have shown up AFTER clinical trials were done and diet pills deemed safe in the past...then I'd say this is not worth the risk in my book!

The bigger question really is, do diet pills address the REAL problem? I know when I was 300 pounds I longed for a pill that would magically melt the fat away...allowing me to not have to face my feelings or why I was over eating or retaining weight in the first place.

It may not be the fastest route in the short-term, but by learning to deal with my emotions I have a much healthier body and I dropped a lot of weight (over 125 pounds) in a bout a year...and that turned out to be a lot faster than ANY diet or pill ever would have done!

Bottom line...for true weight loss success, start with your mind...not with a diet or a pill.