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| Diet Pills Work Best With Healthy Eating, Exercise By E.J. Mundell Proving again that there's no silver bullet for battling obesity, a new study finds the weight-loss pills are most effective when users also eat right and get off the couch. Weight-loss pills "shouldn't be used alone," said Dr. Susan Yanovski, director of the Obesity and Eating Disorders Program at the U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. She's also the author of a commentary on the Meridia (sibutramine) study, published in the Nov. 17 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. "The real take-home message from this article is that when you combined lifestyle modification with the weight-loss drug, you lost twice as much weight," she said. "You lost more than 26 pounds with combined treatment vs. 11 pounds with sibutramine alone." Most obesity experts say lifestyle changes, especially improved diet and exercise, are the real keys to shedding excess pounds. But Dr. Thomas Wadden, director of the Weight and Eating Disorders Program at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, said many overweight Americans still find it tough to lose weight. "There's nothing worse than to be watching your calories and exercising, but the scale just doesn't budge," said Wadden, who was also lead researcher on the Meridia-plus-lifestyle study. "You just feel like, 'My efforts are for naught.' That's when people tend to give up." And that's when diet pills may come in handy, according to Yanovski. "All the weight-loss pills have shown generally what I'd consider a modest weight loss compared with placebo, usually in the range of five to 15 pounds additional weight loss," she said. Few studies have focused on whether this modest weight loss might be improved upon if diet-pill users also switched to low-calorie diets and exercised more. Among other things, the counseling "teaches you how to stay away from all-you-can-eat buffets and fast-food restaurants, gets you to keep food records and to shop from a [healthy foods] list," Wadden explained. The bottom line? When it comes to obesity, "Don't look for a quick fix from the drug store or the internet," Yanovski said. "Combining therapy seems to be much more effective than drug treatment alone." "We now realize that people may have to take weight-loss pills on a long-term basis," Wadden said, "just like they have to take other medications such as those that control cholesterol or high blood pressure." "If people see that their [weight] has gone up, they may realize it's time to do something. It's probably easier to make that small correction," lead researcher Jennifer Linde said in a prepared statement. All that monitoring and hard work could pay off, though, since even minor weight loss can trigger major health benefits. SOURCES: Susan Yanovski, M.D., director, Obesity and Eating Disorders Program, U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Bethesda, Md.; Thomas Wadden, M.D., director, Weight and Eating Disorders Program, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia; Nov. 17, 2005, New England Journal of Medicine; December 2005, Annals of Behavioral Medicine |
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