I've long been wary of these, since we've found (over and over) that human feeding behavior is protected by multiple, overlapping redundant pathways. We are the descendants of a long line of creatures that have made eating and reproducing their absolute priorities in life, and neither of those behaviors are going to be altered lightly. The animals that can be convinced to voluntarily eat so little that they actually lose weight, just through modifying a single biochemical pathway, are all dead. Our ancestors were the other guys.
By all accounts amphetamines work pretty well. Except for the part where your teeth fall out and everything.
I find Hoodia to work pretty well. There seems to be no side effects such as teeth falling out. It does have its limits in that you have to eat something but you find that you no longer have the urge to snack during the day. It helps to limit your eating to three meals a day.
Cutting high fructose corn syrup from my diet, while a difficult lifestyle change (that crap is in EVERYTHING in America), with relatively few other changes to my behavior, led to me losing about 80 pounds over three years.
Recently, quitting Diet Coke has also yielded remarkable weight-loss results. (Aspertame is an appetite enhancer.)
The lesson here: Cut the most unhealthy sweeteners from your diet, and you will (*shock*) be more healthy.
As has been noted repeatedly on this blog and elsewhere, in most cases it isn't appetite that's the problem. It's the ability to simultaneously work at sedentary occupations and obtain large quantities of processed foods. Voila -- instant gut bloat.
Two thoughts spring to mind upon reading this post:
First, "We are the descendants of a long line of creatures that have made eating and reproducing their absolute priorities in life, and neither of those behaviors are going to be altered lightly." And yet, somehow all of the civilized world has seen it's "reproduction" drop well below replacement level without anyone really consciously trying for that outcome. One might almost call it "altered lightly". I guess the counter-argument is that they are having as much or more sex than ever and which your body's hard-wired environmental impulses prob. mistake for it's true goal of reproduction. So if some bright lab-rat can invent a way to fool your body's impulse towards eating in a similar manner (bulimia in a can?) we'll be in like Flynn.
Second, a post about appetite suppresants right after a post about a hair-styling appointment? Don't be down, Megan! You look great, I'm sure!
"And yet, somehow all of the civilized world has seen it's "reproduction" drop well below replacement level without anyone really consciously trying for that outcome."
without consciously trying?
Hello, the Pill?
You might not have to consciously try, but women on the Pill make a conscious effort daily. Duh.
Good point -- if birth-rates for the industrialized world had only fallen off since the advent of the pill or even since the advent of reliable birth control.
In fact, though, birth rates for industrialized countries began to fall almost concurently with industrialization, which is to say many, many years before any reliable forms of birth control existed. (Think early 1800's for England.)
The fall below replacement levels has only happened in recent times but the beginning of the dramatic shift from pre-industrialized birth rates to much lower, post-industrialized birth rates happened very early on in the process.
So, unless you can think of a reason why industrialization would mute this natural impulse to reproduction or if you can point to some widespread conscious effort to drop birth-rates that happened in conjunction with industrialization in every country that industrialized but in no countries that did not industrialize, I'd have to say that the advent of the pill is not the answer to my question.
Beyond that, I did imply that birth control allows people to have as much sex as they might crave, without the kids. This might fool the evolutionary drive towards reproduction if it is hardwired as "lots of sex = lots of reproduction". This is why I suggested that if somebody comes up with a pill or other thing that allows lots of eating without lots of weight gain, your body might be similarly fooled.
Or, in other words, if reproduction and eating are roughly equivalently hard-wired into our evolution, why is it so easy to fool the reproduction bit but so hard to fool the eating bit?
Humans in general are evolved to survive long periods of semi-starvation. So some lucky people have fat-storage mechanisms that will only release fat in extremis, and when you diet through calorie restriction there's some evidence you actually tend to turn these mechanisms on.
Amusingly, modern Western society's obsession with skinny women (and I am certainly no exception) may be a biochemical response to the unprecedented availability of food. Men are probably programmed by evolution to seek larger women in times of famine and skinny ones in times of plenty.
Green tea extract is probably one of the best things you can take right now.
There is no evolutionary-biological reason to seek out a skinny female in a time of plenty. Skinny women are less successful at conceiving and carrying to term--the biological imperative. Seeking out skinny women is unhealthy and unnatural. LOL
There must be, or men wouldn't pursue them. If they were always a bad risk, the men who pursued them would have winnowed themselves from the gene pool.
What it probably means is that in times of plenty, skinny women are better suited to survive -- as you can see from the obesity epidemic and its health consequences.
eat less=lose weight.
exercise more= lose weight.
end scene.
I agree with Lurker (although I don't follow my own advice).
Also, having your teeth fall out strikes me as a pretty good appetite supresser, at least in the Darwinian sense...
Derek is quite right, of course. We'll probably develop some clever ways to block/limit absorption of fat and/or sugar before we successfully modify feeding behavior. Of course, there are likely to be some rather unpleasant side-effects to messing with absorption...
Hmm. I fear that at least the same number of species have gone extinct because they ate too much and reproduced too fast. Could there be a cultural, psychological challenge for some humans to consider less as more? Smaller and fewer is not always "worse" - it is sometimes "better". Just like taking a "right" turn can sometimes be better than "left" and vice versa.
I mean, 10 -5 is better than 1000 - 5000 ? No? At the end of the day we face a production and not consumption problem? Yes we produce more than we can consume (enjoyably). But worse - we produce it in an unsustainable way. I'd rather we produce more than we can consume sustainably one day than produce less than we can consumer unsustainably (our current path).
PS: What is so cool about Apple? Their innovations have always been twofold and thereby more adoptable than most. First - they introduce new features. But that is not unique. Second - they dare to get rid of old, obsolete features as a first-mover! That is real adaptation.
PS II: Somebody give these Indians some McDonald's or they will never stop reproducing living off a hand of rice.
Of course, there are likely to be some rather unpleasant side-effects to messing with absorption...
The weight loss drug Alli blocks fat absorption. The problem being that if you eat too much fat, you may poop yourself. It's considered a "treatment effect"
It's a feature, not a bug.
Ditto Olestra. Watch out for those Olestra potato chips.
Not like I've had them. Just sayin'.
Not all amphetamines are methamphetamine.
Ritalin and other ADHD drugs are great appetite suppressants, and they don't have the nasty side-effects of the crystal meth, such as the gay sex for money, or the teeth falling out, or the getting paid more for the gay sex because you're a gummer.
I had a work-study student, about 20, who had her bf punch her teeth out so she could get pretty white dentures and he could get a gummer hummer.
I was wondering what the teeth falling out thing was about--hadn't heard that in relation to diet drugs. Yeah, confusing methamphetamine with amphetamine would lead to that.
Remember, fen-phen (phen-fen?) was causing heart valve problems and heart attacks and death. Decomposition (or cremation) is a no-fail way to lose weight. A lot of it is water weight though.
Eat less, exercise more. End of story.
You could have just said that Arena was doing poorly, symbol ARNA. Derek has already implied a comment about dosage adjustment.
By the way, Pfizer gave the rights to Hoodia back to Phytopharm maybe 6 years ago. It seems to have disappeared down the rabbit hole. Like you said in the blog above, if we do get something, the Europeans will be happy to pay 10 cents a pill for what had to be $3 here to bring to market. Re: amphetamines, Shire bought the rights to a mixed amphetamine product called Optima maybe 15 years ago. It seems Optima was good for reducing appetite in thin women, Megan we're confirming your story, but not in fat ones. Well, not so good from an efficacy standpoint. The marketing came from Shire which renamed it Adderall for ADHD (not all amphetamine may be meth, but they kind of sound alike but NOT like Adderall perhaps contributing to the marketing success).
Try this:
http://hundredpushups.com
My wife and I just finished week 4. If you're strong, being fat doesn't matter so much.
As far as I've seen the whole "meth makes your teeth fall out" issue is related to the craving for liquid which junkies tends to satisfy with soda. So it's not a real side effect, especially if you were using in a controlled manner for appetite suppression.
Cocaine and nicotine also work pretty well as appetite suppressants, so you can just buy nicotine gum for inhibited hunger without the whole cancer issue.
The best part about ADHD drugs for white collar professionals is that they improve concentration AND reduce appetite. Low blood sugar tends to drive snacking and symbol manipulation/high concentration depletes brain glucose even while you're intensely sedentary. Add in the drug plan cover and it's win/win/win as long as you can get your doc to write a scrip. Not too hard, just complain about an inability to concentrate...
As far as
Prozac and the SRIs do a pretty good job with female sexual inhibition. But maybe, as Andrew Sullivan was trying to point out to us in the instance of Sarah Palin, it's men that have to want to have sex and you don't want any unnecessary distraction.Apparently some people are able to eat a lot of food and maintain a low weight. Hopefully someone will figure out how their bodies do this and then make a drug that changes the metabolisms of people who eat a little bit of food but still maintain a high weight so that they maintain a lower weight.
To the "eat less, exercise more" people... duh... but for some people, that requires eating a LOT less and exercising a LOT more and given the prevalence of cheap, delicious, fattening foods it can be hard to eat fewer calories.
Many people who are thin don't spend all of their time hungry and/or craving food so they can't understand what it's like.
Amphetamines work as diet aids, but generally not for extended periods of time. Tolerance generally develops to the appetite suppression effect and the weight comes back
Nobody really knows why amphetamine addicts have such bad teeth. But there are a lot of possible contributing factors:
1. They make your mouth dry, and dry mouth is a risk factor for tooth decay and gum disease.
2. People with dry mouth often drink sugary beverages, also a risk factor.
3. They constrict the vasculature, which could impair tooth and gum blood supply.
4. They are appetite suppressants, so you don't get very hungry, and they are so addicting that you tend to spend what money you have on drugs, rather than food, so malnutrition is a likely.
Data point: Methamphetamine is actually available by prescription in the US -- it's the absolute last-ditch treatment for kids with severe ADHD, and apparently it works REALLY REALLY well. Addiction is a problematic side effect, of course, as is the part where the DEA sends a SWAT team to the office of any doctor crazy/brave enough to prescribe it, but it's out there.
Oh, and: Yes, street-meth addicts often have bad teeth. So do heroin addicts. Substituting a host of seriously bad behaviors involving toxic chemicals for basic good eating/exercise/hygiene habits turns out to result in lousy health on multiple fronts. Who knew?
Various forms of amphetamines are prescribed for ADHD but it's not a last ditch thing nor is it a big deal. In fact, it can be more of a pain to get pseudophed than pick up your prescription of amphetamines under the current laws where I live.
People are always trying to find a shortcut here. It's really just as easy as proper diet and exercise. I don't really trust drugs. Anyway there are lots of good diet plans out there. I have had personal success with strip that fat. Diets and exercise do take some discipline but it's much healthier than taking drugs and thinking we can get away with being lazy.