Commonly prescribed oral anti-obesity medication and alternative anorectics

Abstract

Epidemiological studies of anti-obesity medicines depict short-term success, but long-term contraindication and failure. The health and fitness industry demonstrates an exponential increase in banned or withdrawn medicines. Everyone is in pursuit of the “golden bullet”. How effective are the older prescription medicines such as orlistat? History has demonstrated retrospectively that the “fen-phen” prescriptive phenomenon cost countless lives and billions of dollars in compensation. New medicines and lower doses of older failed medications to combat the obesity pandemic are being researched. A complete re-assessment of what is available and what is worthwhile is required.