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Posted by j0hn on June 30th, 2007 — in Xenical Top News
Kelowna, BC - Having a weight loss exercise program is fundamental to achieving your goals. Activities help the body to better metabolize the foods we eat, improve digestion, and keep us lean for longer.
Even so, a weight loss exercise program is not something that
you should just jump into. This is especially true if you are looking for a fast exercise weight loss program.
Here are some tips from The Doctors Thin, and they apply to whether you are looking for a fast exercise weight loss program or something more long term:
Visit your doctor first! There is perhaps no other thing as important as getting a clean bill of health before you begin any activities.
Your doctor can best tell you what activities you are able to do safely, and which activities you should avoid.
Find someone to help you. You can find professional help either online or offline.
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You will want to find someone who is trained in helping people with physical activities, someone who is friendly as well as very knowledgeable in their area of expertise.
You can, of course, go it alone, but that is often not advisable for those individuals who are unfamiliar with the various types of activities and the amount of stress that each produces on the body.
Before you begin your weight loss exercise program, make sure that you stretch properly.
Cold muscles are easy to injure and once injured they are often painful and take a lot of time to heal.
These are only a few of things that you need to keep in mind as you begin your regime. There is plenty of online help to assist you in finding the best plan for you, one that your body can tolerate and benefit from, as well as one that you doctor can approve.
We have an extensive amount of information about this subject on our website and we encourage you to visit us. When you arrive, simply click on the appropriate link and you can read up on how you should best move forward. We also offer some resources on the subject that you may find very interesting.
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Posted by j0hn on June 25th, 2007 — in Xenical Top News
How badly do you want to be skinny? Is it worth soiling your underwear?
Those questions will likely confront users of the new Alli, the first over-the-counter diet drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Alli (pronounced al-EYE) went on sale for the first time about a week ago - a stronger prescription form, Xenical, has been available since 1999 - and its promotional material alone makes for strong medicine: The drug, which helps people lose small amounts of weight, can cause oily discharges, uncontrolled bowel movements, and gas if you eat too much fat.
Its marketing effort makes an impression by telling users to wear dark pants and carry extra clothes in case they soil themselves.
“Well, that sounds attractive, doesn’t it?” Jay Leno cracked Monday on “The Tonight Show.” “You lost a couple of pounds, and you’re on a date with that special girl. `Excuse me while I change my pants.’”
NBC’s Conan O’Brien also spoke up to pooh-pooh Alli, suggesting that “the drug comes in three forms: pills, capsules and chimichangas.”
Even the serious Boston-based Prescription Access Litigation Project, which often sues drug companies, got gleeful. It gave the drug’s maker, GlaxoSmithKline P.L.C., its `With Allies Like This, Who Needs Enemas?’ Award for Irresponsibly Selling a Formerly Prescription-Only Weight Loss Drug Over-the-Counter.
The drug’s backers say that the embarrassment is exaggerated and that the effects can be managed by a low-fat diet.
Only half of all users had “fecal urgency” or related effects in clinical trials, and just 5 percent quit for those reasons, said Vidhu Bansal, director of medical affairs for GlaxoSmithKline’s consumer health division.
“They actually served as a positive feedback tool,” she said. “It reminded them that they cheated on their diet.”
Caroline Apovian, a Boston physician who wrote “The Alli Diet Plan,” which shows how to minimize problems by eating low-fat foods, said she did not understand the shame people might feel over losing bowel control. “It’s also embarrassing to be obese,” said Apovian, who was a paid consultant to GlaxoSmithKline in getting Alli approved for over-the-counter sales. “It’s embarrassing to be dead.”
GlaxoSmithKline executives are pitching Alli as part of a lifestyle change, which includes a commitment to eat better and exercise more. Users can log in their progress on the drug’s Web site - www.myalli.com - and interact with other customers or ask questions of a pharmacist, a nutritionist, a chef, and a fitness specialist.
The firm, with a U.S. headquarters in Philadelphia, paid $100 million to Xenical’s maker, Roche, for the rights to sell Alli over the counter. GlaxoSmithKline is spending an additional $150 million in a marketing campaign that includes a 60-second television ad and print ads appearing this month in most major magazines, read by 33 million people.
Bill Trombetta, professor of pharmaceutical marketing at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, said the comedians’ attention has an initial upside. “They got your attention. This is on everyone’s lips,” he said. “You can’t buy this kind of publicity.”
But will the exposure move people to try it?
Maybe at first, said Kelly Brownell, who directs the Yale Center for Eating and Weight Disorders. But he predicts “sales will tail off fairly quickly.”
“The people who will try it won’t lose much weight and won’t provide very good word-of-mouth,” he said.
“Both the benefits and the side effects are overstated,” Brownell added. “It’s not going to hurt many people, and it’s not going to help many people.”
Marion Nestle, a nutrition professor at New York University and a frequent critic of the food industry, noted that many users may replace fat calories by eating more carbohydrates. “A lot of Alli takers will do that and wonder why they aren’t losing weight,” she wrote in an e-mail.
The early results are sketchy.
In the California beach town of Santa Monica, a Los Angeles Times reporter found that Alli bottles were flying off store shelves.
But in Philadelphia, once dubbed the nation’s fattest city, Alli’s arrival appeared to be less of a sensation.
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“We do have it in stock. No one has inquired about it,” pharmacist Maria Taylor at Narberth Pharmacy, said last week, echoing several other Philadelphia-area pharmacists. “Maybe it should come with a coupon for Depends,” the adult diaper.
Alli contains 60 milligrams of orlistat - half the amount found in prescription Xenical. The over-the-counter version is taken three times a day with meals and costs from $60 to $67 for a month’s supply. A year’s worth costs at least $720.
The prescription drug’s U.S. sales have been fading, from $135 million in 2002 to $93 million last year.
Despite the fact that obesity rates are surging, an effective drug remains elusive. “Eating is so fundamental for human existence that the body has multiple redundant systems,” said Gary D. Foster, who directs Temple University’s Center for Obesity Research and Education and was a consultant to GlaxoSmithKline for its Alli Web site. “So if you block one pathway, it’s evolutionarily smart to have a backup.”
Alli works by blocking the digestive enzyme Lipase, which aids in fat absorption. The firm estimates that Alli blocks about 25 percent of the fat that reaches the gut.
But too much fat can cause oily discharges. “You may recognize it as something that looks like the oil on top of a pizza,” an Alli brochure says cheerily.
That is what happened to Paula Miguel, 35, of Hopatcong, N.J. She was one of 400 people picked by the drug firm to receive a six-month supply of Alli for free.
She said it was hardest the first week to establish her routine to walk more and eat better.
She felt a strong urge to go after downing some greasy crab cakes at a friend’s house. “When I went to the bathroom, it was orangey, like an oil,” she said.
But, she said, that happened only once since she began April 18. Overall, she said, she has lost 23 pounds, falling to 170 pounds on her 5-foot-3 frame. “It’s not as bad as they say,” said Miguel. “I eat better … I’m more active. For me, it works fine.”
The company said users could expect to lose an average of 10 pounds in a year. But that’s high, independent experts say. The more potent prescription version helped participants lose an average of 6.3 pounds by the end of a year, according to researchers who analyzed 50 studies for a 2005 article in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Paul Woolf, chairman of the department of medicine at Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Chester, Pa., was on the FDA advisory committee that in 2006 recommended that Alli be freed from prescription status.
He called Alli “a real niche product” that causes modest weight loss.
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Posted by j0hn on June 23rd, 2007 — in Xenical Top News
Weight Loss Management Solution
BodyMedia has launched SenseWear WMS (Weight Management Solution).
SenseWear WMS is the first ever web-based clinical weight management solution to focus on behavior therapy. Ideally suited for obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease (CVD), the system enables practitioners and patients to continuously and accurately track health metrics such as calories burned, calories consumed, physical activity and sleep. SenseWear WMS is designed to improve patient outcomes by increasing patient adherence to behavioral prescriptions.
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“By making patients’ health and lifestyle metrics available through a web- based system, SenseWear WMS is taking weight management to the next level,” said Colleen Cook, President of Bariatric Support Centers International. “Having access to this personalized data allows each patient to better understand their own metabolism. With that understanding and the essential feedback that this program provides, patients will be empowered to make the changes necessary to reach and maintain a healthy weight and truly understand how behavior impacts weight and the daily management of their condition.”
BodyMedia chose to announce SenseWear WMS at the annual ADA show due to the overwhelming number of persons living with diabetes who are overweight and are in need of tools that can help them conveniently and accurately monitor their food, activity and sleep habits. BodyMedia will be inviting attendees to come by their booth and test drive the SenseWear armband during the show which runs through Monday June 25th.
“BodyMedia is committed to advancing behavioral therapy by providing clinicians and patients with the most accurate and effective tools for the management of metabolic disorders,” states Fernando Sanchez, CEO of BodyMedia. “Behavior is the foundation of healthcare. By improving it, together we can improve patient outcomes and turn the tide on diabetes, obesity and reduce the impact these diseases represent to our healthcare system.”
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Posted by j0hn on June 17th, 2007 — in Xenical Top News
LOS ANGELES — Thursday morning, 12 boxes of alli, the first over-the-counter diet drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), were placed on the top shelf of a Santa Monica Walgreens’ diet section. Four hours later, all but one had been sold.
“I have never in my life experienced anything like this,” store manager Roe Love, a pharmacist for 20 years, said as she eyed the empty space next to the last box of 90 capsules — a month’s supply — selling for $59.99.
The fact that the product is kept with the rest of the diet drugs under locked glass on the shelf — to prevent theft — did not deter people from requesting it.
The only comparable phenomenon Love could think of was the frenzy over the antibiotic Cipro during the post-Sept. 11 anthrax scare. “You couldn’t fill those prescriptions fast enough,” she said.
The latest nonprescription diet pill was rolled out last week by manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline. The company’s Web site, myalli.com, and literature offer the potential for a greater weight loss than dieting alone (if you do everything right) and a warning of extraordinarily unpleasant and embarrassing side effects (if you don’t).
Women customers
Not all merchants have alli (pronounced “ally”) in stock yet, but among those that do, the buyers have overwhelmingly been women.
Weight-loss ally?
There are two FDA-approved prescription drugs for the long-term treatment of obesity: Meridia, an appetite suppressant, and Xenical, which limits the amount of fat the body absorbs.
Alli is a lower-dose version of Xenical that doesn’t require a prescription.
Because alli can interfere with vitamin absorption, it can affect how medications act in the body, and users are advised to take a multivitamin supplement.
It is not recommended for children younger than 18, people with kidney disease, patients on blood-thinners and certain other medications, and pregnant or breast-feeding women.
Seattle Times news services
“And they’re not fat,” Love said of the women she saw buying the drug at her store.
In Los Angeles, where thinness is the Holy Grail and people will do just about anything to get there — including risking some rather unfortunate intestinal distress — buyers did not flinch at possible side effects.
The drug is a lower-dose version of prescription Xenical, which was introduced several years ago. Although Xenical never was a blockbuster, GlaxoSmithKline expects alli to rake in at least $1.5 billion in annual sales, and the company is expected to spend $150 million on marketing the drug in its first year.
It works in the digestive system by blocking the absorption of about 25 percent of fat that is consumed. In a theoretical 3,000-calorie-a-day diet with about 100 grams of fat, the drug would eliminate about 225 calories.
Icky side effects
But it also can result in what the manufacturer describes as diarrhea, uncontrollable bowel movements and gas with an oily discharge. “It’s probably a smart idea to wear dark pants, and bring a change of clothes with you to work,” the drug’s Web site says. The drug maker’s literature and Web site say side effects can be minimized with a low-fat, reduced-calorie diet.
“We’re skeptical about something like this going over the counter,” said Dr. Rohini Ashok, a Kaiser Permanente-Santa Teresa, Calif., physician and a leader of the HMO’s new doctor-supervised weight-loss program. “It’s not an unsafe drug, but it’s not benign. The side effects are pretty gross.”
Ashok said many Kaiser Permanente patients who took the prescription version of alli generally didn’t refill their first prescription because of the side effects.
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“Will it work?”
But the women buying alli were unfazed. At a San Fernando Valley Walgreens that had sold 10 boxes — with one man among the buyers — no one was asking the pharmacist about side effects.
” ‘Will it work?’ That’s the only question they’re asking,” said the store’s pharmacy manager, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
At a prominent display in a Rite Aid in Santa Monica, prospective buyers clutched the big alli starter kit and shared war stories from the diet battleground.
“I’ve tried so many other things,” said Monique Brown, a Santa Monica legal secretary who says she’s been through Metabolife, CortiSlim and various other products, some of which made her jittery. She dreams of losing 30 pounds.
At least alli won’t make her jittery, she said.
The materials that accompany alli and on the Web site emphasize that people should eat a low-fat, reduced-calorie diet. If dieters can stick to that discipline, they “can lose about 50 percent more weight than dieting alone,” according to the drug brochure, which many stores displayed. They can also allay some of the side effects. And the manufacturer notes that awareness of possible side effects acts as a disincentive to overeat fatty foods.
Alli is intended for overweight people 18 and older, according to the manufacturer. However, the controls are unclear.
At some stores, it could be picked up off the shelf and taken to a cashier for purchase.
But at a Walgreens in the San Fernando Valley, the drug was being held behind the pharmacy counter, according to the pharmacy manager.
As sales were rung up, “the register prompts us to check for I.D. for a birth date,” said the pharmacy manager, who added that she would not sell it to someone younger than 18.
Earlier this year, Dr. Adrienne Youdim, a weight-loss specialist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, said alli has a good safety record and has helped people lose an average of 10 to 16 pounds.
Not everyone, however, welcomes the product or the hype. New York-based nutritionist Oz Garcia, who treats clients on both coasts, said: “There is no real advantage to using alli unless you’re doing what you’re supposed to do: working out, eating a well-balanced diet, all the things you have to pay attention to.”
Garcia noted that a fat-blocking drug does no good for those gulping down cookies and pasta and other carbohydrates.
“A lot of the weight gain that has occurred in the last decade is because people are already eating low-fat, but they’re eating high carbs,” Garcia said.
Material from the San Jose Mercury News is included in this report.
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Posted by j0hn on June 13th, 2007 — in Xenical Top News
A proposed weight-loss drug that appears to raise the risk of suicidal thoughts shouldn’t be taken by people who are depressed, its manufacturer told federal health advisers Wednesday as they considered whether to recommend approval.
The Food and Drug Administration is expected to decide by July 27 whether to allow Sanofi-Aventis (nyse: SNY - news - people ) SA to sell the drug, called rimonabant, by prescription in the United States.
Study results that suggest the once-daily tablet raises the risk of suicidal thoughts and other symptoms of depression could lead to stern warnings on the medication if it is approved. Company officials appeared Wednesday open to such warnings, which could exclude its FDA-approved use in some patients.
“Who is the right patient to receive rimonabant? Not everybody,” Sanofi-Aventis’ Richard Gural told the panel of advisers. The drug is not appropriate for anyone with a history of depression or suicidal thoughts, or who has been diagnosed with depression or is currently taking antidepressant medication, he added.
Sanofi-Aventis wants to sell the drug under the brand name Zimulti. Scrutiny of its psychiatric effects have delayed a final FDA decision on the medication: “Obviously, a big concern for us,” Dr. Eric Colman, deputy director of the FDA’s metabolic and endocrine drugs office, told the panelists.
The outside advisory committee was to make its recommendation on the drug late Wednesday. The agency isn’t required to follow the advice of its outside advisers but does so most of the time. The agency previously told the French company it would not approve the drug to help smokers quit.
Rimonabant blocks the same pleasure centers in the body activated when pot smokers get the munchies. Blocking the receptors leads to patients eating less and losing weight. Sanofi-Aventis also believes the drug decreases fat storage.
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The prescription drug, when used in conjunction with a modest calorie diet and physical exercise, significantly decreases body weight and waist circumference in overweight or obese patients, according to Sanofi-Aventis. In yearlong studies, patients on the drug lost roughly 14 pounds. Those given dummy pills lost only about 4 pounds. Patients regained weight when treatment was stopped after a year, the company said.
What worries FDA reviewers is that the drug’s effect on the body’s cannabinoid receptors could lead to psychiatric symptoms, including anxiety, phobias, depression and post-traumatic stress disorders.
In studies, 26 percent of patients given Zimulti reported such a symptom, compared with 14 percent of those given sham treatment. Specifically, 9 percent of those treated with the drug reported symptoms of depression, compared with 5 percent given dummy pills.
And patients on the drug reported a twofold increase in suicidal thoughts, compared to those on dummy pills. The company believes all those cases were associated with depression or other disorders and weren’t directly caused by its drug.
Sanofi-Aventis seeks to sell 20-milligram Zimulti tablets to the obese and to those who are overweight and have type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure or other conditions that put them at risk of cardiovascular disease.
Obesity rates have exploded in the past two decades. Today, nearly one in three American adults age 20 or older is obese, according to government data.
Generally, anyone with a body mass index, a ratio that takes into account height and weight, greater than 30 is considered obese. The overweight BMI range is 25 to 29.9. Normal is 18.5 to 24.9.
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Posted by j0hn on June 10th, 2007 — in Xenical Top News
Diet pill alli (low-dose Xenical) will go on sale in grocery stores and pharmacies around America on Friday June 15th, according to an announcement on GlaxoSmithKline’s official alli website.
The terse announcement said “beginning June 15th, alli will be available in all major drug, grocery, and discount/warehouse stores in the weight loss product aisle.”
A number of online retailers have been allowing dieters eagerly awaiting the first FDA approved over-the-counter weight-loss drug to “preorder” alli for shipment the day it is officially placed on sale.
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A number of readers have been searching for the lowest price for the diet pill, and have reported their results to our sister newsletter, alli Report.
As of the moment, the lowest price still seems to be offered by MyFloridaPharmacy.com, which is offering the alli weight loss aid starter pack with 90 pills for $58.99.
Two other options also are being offered: the alli weight loss aid starter pack with 60 pills for $48.29, the alli refill with 120 pills for $73.29.
With the launch of sales of the non-prescription drug only a week off, observers expect a new flurry of promotional activity in the days immediately ahead.
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Posted by j0hn on June 5th, 2007 — in Xenical Top News
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Though dieters often see their weight “yo-yo,” a new national survey suggests that many Americans do fairly well at keeping the pounds off.
Government researchers found that of 1,310 U.S. adults who’d ever lost a substantial amount of weight, the majority had managed to keep at least some of the weight off.
Overall, 59 percent were still close to their weight of a year before — which in all cases was at least 10 percent lower than their heaviest all-time weight. Another 8 percent weighed less than they did a year earlier.
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However, one third of the subjects had regained a significant amount of weight over the year, the researchers report in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
Lost pounds are notorious for finding their way back again. So it’s “encouraging” to see that so many people in this study were keeping their weight stable, lead study author Dr. Edward Weiss told Reuters Health.
Still, weight maintenance remains a “challenge” in a culture that encourages sitting and eating, according to Weiss and his colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
Several past studies have shown that overweight people in clinical weight-loss programs regain the weight when the program ends. Individuals treated with lifestyle modification, like calorie-cutting and exercise, generally regain about one third of their lost weight over the next year. By the fifth year, they’ve regained most of the weight, on average.
But much of the research on weight regain has focused on people in clinical weight-loss programs. To get a better idea of how the average American fares, Weiss’s team used data from a federal health survey that questioned a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults.
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The researchers focused on 1,310 men and women who, 1 year before the survey, weighed at least 10 percent less than their all-time high. They then compared respondents’ current weight with their weight 1 year earlier.
While relatively few people kept losing weight over the year, the study found, a majority managed to stay within 5 percent of their weight from the year before.
Exercise seemed to be one of the factors that separated the regainers from the maintainers. The odds of weight regain were twice as high among sedentary men and women than among those who met public health recommendations for exercise — moderate physical activity for at least 30 minutes a day on most, and preferably all, days of the week.
The risk also climbed in tandem with the number of hours survey respondents spent in front of the TV or computer each day.
Exercise, Weiss said, has consistently been associated with long-term weight-loss maintenance. So staying active after the pounds are off may be one key to keeping them off.
But he pointed out that exercise has to be accompanied by continuing calorie control.
It’s also important for people to focus on more than the number on the scale, according to the researcher. Even if the weight loss is not as substantial as you’d like, eating well and exercising will bring significant health benefits, like lower risks of diabetes and heart disease.
SOURCE: American Journal of Preventive Medicine, July 2007.
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Posted by j0hn on June 2nd, 2007 — in Xenical Top News
Claims that diet drug Acomplia offers benefits beyond those associated with weight loss may not be justified, according to a new report by independent British medical experts.
On its website, Acomplia’s manufacturer, sanofi aventis, says that the drug “has a beneficial effect on blood glucose and lipid levels — a more beneficial effect than would be expected from weight loss alone.”
But experts writing in the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin, published by the British Medical Journal May 30, said there was no proof in clinical trials that Acomplia had any beneficial effects outside those expected by weight loss.
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The report comes as the UK’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) weighs whether and under what conditions Acomplia should be paid for by the National Health Service.
Furthermore, NICE officials have said that Xenical (orlistat) “is the drug for obesity for which there is the most evidence for efficacy and safety to date, and we have previously concluded that it is a reasonable option for obese patients where diet and exercise and/or behavioral measures alone have failed.”
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Posted by j0hn on May 29th, 2007 — in Xenical Top News
NEW YORK - Joey Fatone is the ‘’fat one'’ no more.
Two weeks before committing to ‘’Dancing With the Stars,'’ Fatone joined NutriSystem, a weight-loss program that delivers meals to a customer’s door.
That and a rigorous five-hour, six-day-a-week dance schedule helped him shed 23 pounds in two months, he said.
‘’After ‘N Sync, I wasn’t very active and had reached 235 pounds,'’ Fatone said in a phone interview. ‘’I've gone from a size 38 to a size 34.'’
NutriSystem has now adopted him as a spokesman - emphasis on ‘’man.'’ While the weight-loss industry has focused more on women in the past, some programs like Weight Watchers and NutriSystem are marketing new programs to men.
NutriSystem debuted its Silver program for older men about a year ago and continues to promote it. After an ad campaign, 35 percent of the company’s 363,000 new clients in the first quarter of 2007 were men, up from 13 percent from the same time last year, said CEO Mike Hagan.
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Weightwatchers.com launched a Web site devoted to men in March, and more men are signing up, said senior vice president Alexandra Aleskovsky, although she could not provide numbers.
Men could certainly use a helping hand in shedding some extra pounds: According to the Centers for Disease Control, about 71 percent of men in the U.S. are overweight or obese. That compares with about
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61 percent of women who are overweight.
‘’If the trend continues, by 2040, every American should be overweight,'’ warned Allen Rader, a board member with the Denver-based American Society of Bariatric Physicians.
‘’Weight on the typical man’s radar screen is barely a blip,'’ said Karen Miller-Kovach, a dietitian whose title at Weight Watchers is chief scientific officer. She is the author of the recent Weight Watchers book She Loses, He Loses, about men and women and their differing attitudes about diets and weight.
‘’Men are slow to come to the plate of weight loss,'’ she said, ‘’but generally, when they do decide to lose weight, they tend to be more successful than women, not only in terms of the speed but keeping the weight off. ‘’When it comes to weight loss, women fight battles. Men declare war,'’ she said
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Posted by j0hn on May 25th, 2007 — in Xenical Top News
NEW YORK — You won’t lose weight in your sleep or shed pounds while eating anything you want — that’s the sobering message from the maker of a weight loss pill poised to hit shelves next month.
GlaxoSmithKline on Tuesday opened an educational exhibit in New York City to prepare the country for alli, the first over-the-counter diet pill approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
While the cautionary marketing approach may not trigger stampedes to the counter, analysts say the drug’s fate hinges on the pharmaceutical giant’s ability to convince people diet pills aren’t a magic bullet.
“People’s hopes are ridiculously high when it comes to diet pills. That leads to disappointment and bad word of mouth,” said Steven Brozak, an analyst with WBB Securities.
That’s just what happened to the prescription version of the drug, Xenical by Roche Holding, which contains twice the dosage. People were let down when it failed to deliver dramatic results and the drug never really caught on, Brozak said.
GlaxoSmithKline has apparently learned the lesson and is counting on alli to become a star money maker. The company is spending $150 million on marketing alli this year, making it one of the drug maker’s biggest campaigns to date.
“We’ve done everything to go out of our way to be honest,” said Steve Burton, vice president of the weight control division at GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare. “We’re taking a very different approach than the fad diets people are constantly exposed to.”
In clinical trials, the FDA says people using alli lost an additional 2 to 3 pounds for every 5 pounds lost through diet and exercise. The FDA approved alli to be sold over the counter in February.
When taken with meals, the drug blocks the absorption of about one-quarter of any fat consumed. That fat — about 150 to 200 calories worth — is passed out of the body, potentially resulting in loose stools.
About half of patients in trials experienced gastrointestinal side effects, including leakages and oily discharges.
GlaxoSmithKline is frank about those unpleasant effects, which it says can be controlled if the drug is used properly. The campaign stresses the importance of keeping meals under 15 grams of fat to avoid effects.
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Educational materials even recommend people start the program when they have a few days off work, or to bring an extra pair of pants to the office. Experts say a failure to adequately prepare consumers about the effects contributed to Xenical’s limited success.
The alli event comes a day after the company’s shares dropped almost 8 percent when a report this week found the company’s widely prescribed diabetes pill raised the risk of heart attacks and possibly death. Some experts called it another Vioxx-like example of the U.S. government failing to protect people from an unsafe drug.
Glaxo shares gained 1.5 percent to $53.99 Tuesday afternoon.
Alli only affects the digestive system, Glaxo says, and is the only safe over-the-counter diet drug that’s been shown to work.
The company estimates 5 million to 6 million Americans a year will buy the drug, translating to at least $1.5 billion a year in retail sales.
The drug will come in “starter kits” containing a food journal, a healthy eating guide and a fat and calorie reference guide. A 60-capsule kit will cost about $50 while a 90-capsule pack will cost about $60. Recommended usage is one or two pills daily.
Labeling indicates alli is appropriate for anybody who is overweight, or has a body mass index of 25 or higher. A body mass index more than 30 is considered obese.
Two-thirds of the U.S. population is estimated to be overweight or obese.
Just how many people find alli’s benefits worth the cost of the drug is the “million dollar question,” said Kelly Brownell, a food policy researcher at Yale University.
Diet drugs don’t deliver the big results most people expect, and are only effective when used along with diet and exercise, Brownell said.
The alli exhibit in New York City — featuring plates with sensible portion sizes and an interactive Web site — encapsulates the drug maker’s marketing emphasis on that need for diet and exercise.
To prepare for alli’s launch in mid-June, the company ran television spots directing viewers to a Web site where they could learn more about the drug. A retail book also was made available. The idea, Burton said, was to give “people some pause” and time to learn about the drug.
The message that alli isn’t an easy fix marks a step in the right direction for pharmaceutical companies, said Michael Santoro, a professor of business ethics at Rutgers University.
“One of the things we’ve seen so often in advertisements is that a drug can be an alternative to a healthy lifestyle,” Santoro said.
Still, he questioned whether a diet drug had any role in a campaign about healthy lifestyles.
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