Phentermine, other prescription medications and diet pills for weight loss online

What medications promote weight loss?

There are a number of classes of medication available to help you to lose weight but, as a general rule, Weight Loss Medicationsyou should ask your physician which ones will work best for you. It is not a good idea to experiment on yourself and mixing combinations of drugs can be dangerous. Most of those medications approved for weight loss purposes are only prescribed for short-term use, i.e. a few weeks, but some physicians do prescribe them for longer periods of time — this is called "off-label use". Meridia and Xenical are approved for longer-term where the patients are genuinely obese. No medication on the market has been formally tested for safety and effectiveness beyond two years, although some of the medications have been used over many years in private practice.

Anorectics or appetite suppressants

Most of the weight loss medications approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are appetite-suppressants. They work by affecting your appetite to make you feel less hungry or more full, as in Phentermine, Acomplia (Rimonabant), Meridia (Sibutramine Hydrochloride Monohydrate) and Tenuate (Diethylcathinone). You should recognise that even though amphetamines have been approved used as appetite suppressants, they should be used with caution because of the risk of dependence and abuse.

Pancreatic Lipase inhibitor

One medication, Xenical (Orlistat) works in a different way by blocking the enzyme lipase in the intestine, which is responsible for breaking down dietary fat. This reduces your body's ability to absorb dietary fat by about one third and it is excreted undigested.

Medications used off-label

Despite the severity of the medical problems caused by excessive weight and obesity, only a few medications on the market have formal approval as antiobesity medications. Nevertheless, there is a body of evidence available from clinical trials that some medications that can alter your conscious mind, known as psychotropic agents, are as effective in promoting weight loss as those with approval. Even though they are not currently approved for the treatment of obesity, these medications are prescribed "off label" by physicians for weight loss purposes.

The main clinical evidence comes from trials of medications used for the treatment of mood disorders, epilepsy and seizures. For example, a recent single centre, double-blind, placebo-controlled, flexible-dose study into binge eating disorder found that Zonegran (zonisamide) was effective in reducing weight. The majority of the randomised, placebo-controlled trials merely observe a weight loss as a "side effect" of the medication under test. Only a few trials have weight loss as their primary study objective.

The psychotropic agents most often studied in formal obesity trials have been those medications used to treat depression and epilepsy, the first being the Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) such as Prozac (fluoxetine hydrochloride), Zoloft (sertraline) and Luvox (fluvoxamine). Additional data have also been published for other antidepressants such as Effexor (venlafaxine), Celexa (citalopram) and Wellbutrin (bupropion) and antiepileptics such as Topamax (topiramate) and Zonegran (zonisamide).

The available data from the trials to establish effectiveness and safety of psychotropic agents in obesity and other related conditions, suggest that SSRIs are useful for the treatment of thos obese individuals who are depressed, or engaging in binge eating, or already suffering from Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus. Wellbutrin, Topamax and Zonegran also seem to be promising in the treatment of obesity. In a meta-study published in 2005, phentermine, Meridia, Orlistat, Diethylcathinone, Wellbutrin, Prozac and Topamax promoted statistically similar, albeit modest, weight losses when taken in combination with a diet. A new trial organised by National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) is recruiting in 2008 to test Zonegran (zonisamide) as an antiobesity agent.

Metformin which is most commonly prescribed to treat Type 2 Diabetes may also promote small amounts of weight loss for those who are obese. The precise mechanism for this is unknown, but it appears to achieve this effect by reducing appetite which encourages people to eat less.

At various times, there have been some popular combinations. But there is almost no scientific evidence about the safety or effectiveness of combining phentermine with either fluoxetine or phendimetrazine, or of Orlistat with Meridia. None of the herbal combinations have been tested. When there is no clinical research to study these combinations, it is almost certainly not worth the additional expsense given the unknown risks.

There are a number of new drugs in development as potential treatments for obesity, but they are not yet available commercially. Until they arrive, you should use the available prescription medications as advised by your physician. More generally, you should accept the fact that losing weight is strongly recommended if you are carrying excessive weight. It reduces the chances that you will contract one of the associated diseases and extends your life expectancy. But that weight loss is best achieved by combining any medications you take with a healthy diet and exercise.