Yet Another Diet Pill in the Offing

There is a vast array of pills and potions out there that promise to help you lose weight and now there is another name to tag on to that list: Qnexa is the new experimental anti obesity drug that has recently got the backing of US health advisers.

New diet pill and possible problems

The prescription anti obesity drug had been rejected by the FDA in the past few years but has been presented once again for review now after more trials. The drug Qnexa is being promoted by manufacturers on the basis that it can help one in every three Americans who are obese.

Diet-Pill-in-the-OffingThe FDA’s outside panel of experts voted overwhelmingly in favor of the drug being of the view that the possible health benefits outweighed the risks associated with the drug.

The risks include heart palpitations and the possibility of birth defects if taken by pregnant women.

Why diet pills do not work

The reasons why so many of us areoverweight are many. But the main reason is that we have evolved in a way that makes the body store calories in the form of fat for future use.

In the long history of human evolution and civilization, there have always been times of scarcity interspersed with the times of plenty.

Our bodies have developed a very powerful defense mechanism against starvation by storing calorieswithin our bodies for just these times of scarcity. In the past century or so, we have progressed to the point that most of us face no times of scarcity; food is available in plenty and all of the time.

Yet our evolutionary trait of storing food in the form of fat has not abated, even though our modern lifestyles do not need any such defense mechanism. As Dr. David Katz of Yale University’s Prevention Research Center puts it, we have no defenses against overeating, quite simply because we have never before needed them.

And the crux of the problem is that there has been no diet pill that is yet able to combat this fundamental problem of controlling this natural evolutionary defense mechanism of the body. This has been tried in various different ways: pills to speed up the metabolism, drugs to suppress the appetite and yet other to block signals to the brain.

None however have really worked effectively and safely enough to be a real antidote to obesity. The pills can have harmful side effects, they can become addictive or they simply don’t work for some. WhetherQnexa is going to be any different, remains to be seen.