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I read news online, so I don't have a newspaper delivered to my home daily, just on the weekends. My father was always a big advocate of the morning paper, and it was upon his encouragement that the Newark Star Ledger started appearing on my doorstep each Sunday. One of his arguments was that the Sunday paper paid for itself in coupons.
Long lead-in, yes, but, here's the tie-in: This past weekend the first FDA-approved over-the-counter multiple-hyphenated-adjectives-possessing weight loss drug appeared in multiple store circulars. Yes, I'm talking about Alli. If the FDA-approved it, it must be good, right? Well, maybe not exactly. Alli is the over-the-counter version of Orlistat marketed by GlaxoSmithKline; The prescription version goes by the name Xenical and has been available from Roche.
Alli is not the "magic bullet" for weight loss, even GlaxoSmithKline admits that. You'll still need to supplement this drug with diet and exercise. Alli seems to be geared toward those that are extremely overweight. Fitness buffs that want to remove a few extra pounds need to search elsewhere, unless, of course, they carry a change of clothes during their morning runs . (I really did not intend that unfortunate pun, but I'm leaving it in anyway.)
Mike Adams at Newstarget.com touches on pretty much all the downside of Alli, the diarrhea, incontinence, blocking of healthy fats, prevention of vitamin absorption...
When I saw all the hullabaloo over this drug, I thought maybe the time was right to buy some Glaxo stock, and put a few dollars into my brokerage account. But after reading the side effects I thought perhaps I should purchase stock in Proctor & Gamble or Kimberly-Clark instead. Why? Because they're the makers of Pampers and Huggies respectively.
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