Diet pills are said to help you lose weight as easily as changes in your diet do. Just like diets, there is a broad range of diet pills and manufacturers often promise great results based on the characteristics and ingredients of a diet pill.
What are the ingredients in diet pills?
Diet pills contain many ingredients such as apple cider vinegar, extract of green tea, citric acid and caffeine. While these compounds stimulate the fat burning process in your body, they can be an addition to the process of losing weight at most. The ingredients cannot create miracles like the manufacturers love to claim.
Scientifically proven effect?
Of the many diet pills on the market, only a few have been proven to be effective through scientific methods. Among these are Acomplia, Reductil and Alli.
Acomplia reduces the amount of nutrients that pass into your body, while Reductil makes you feel saturated. Alli contains the ingredient Orlistat, which stops your body from absorbing a quarter of the fat you eat. Alli has proven to be the only over-the-counter diet pill.
Be careful when ordering diet pills over the internet. Over 60% of the internet diet pills have been proven to be fake. This means that there are no active ingredients in these pills. You might as well eat a mint to get the same placebo effect.
There is also a group of dangerous pills you can get over the internet, of which the effect have not been proven. More often than not, these pills have not been sufficiently tested. Nevertheless they circulate on the internet. Using these pills is advised against, because they can be a danger to your health.
Appetite suppressants and fat burners
There are roughly two categories of diet pills on the market: appetite suppressants and fat burners.
Appetite suppressants make you feel less hungry and make you feel saturated faster. This helps you eat less.
Fat burners give your metabolism a boost, which helps you prevent weight gain and makes it easier to lose weight during a weight loss diet.
Next to these two main categories there are also pills that reduce the absorption of fat and carbohydrates in your body. An example of this is Alli.
There is a big difference between a prescribed medical diet pill and over-the-counter pills.
Over-the-counter pills often contain natural ingredients, such as apple cider vinegar. These ingredients support your lipid metabolism. It is easier to lose weight when combining both a weight decreasing diet and a diet pill. However, the concentration of active ingredients in these compounds are not high enough to make you lose weight on its own. It can even be harmful in high dosages.
Diet pills and weight loss shakes from Modifast, Bional and Proactol Plus are examples of products available in the supermarket. These pills have been tested and proven to be harmless. However it will be good to keep in mind these pill and shakes will not create miracles and can only be an addition in your attempt to lose weight.
A doctor will only prescribe you diet pills if you are morbidly obese or when you have severe health issues related to your weight. In these cases your health will be in danger, which makes medical intervention necessary.
Side effects
Especially the medical diet pills can cause a lot of side effects. These vary from palpitations, insomnia and headache to a high blood pressure and nausea.
Other unpleasant side effect can be diarrhea, flatulence or a greasy stool. Alli is one of the pills that can give you these side effect. Luckily these effects are often temporary.
Do you have any experience with diet pills? Let us know below what you think of them in a comment!
Do you want to know more about this subject? It is all on the DVD ‘Losing Weight’!