For those who prefer losing weight from the comfort of their living room couch while watching TV and eating a bag of potato chips with a large diet soda, the FDA has a new drug for you!
Vivus Inc. manufactures the FDA approved anti-obesity drug Qsymia. Doctors prescribe it for overweight and obese people who have at least one other health problem related to weight. Examples include hypertension, high cholesterol, or Type 2 diabetes.
The market for this highly anticipated new drug is huge, with more than 1/3 of US adults now obese.
Obesity projections are no doubt great news for Vivus Inc’s shareholders. Overweight and obese people will likely total 80% of the adult population by 2020 with more than 1 in 5 children obese in just a few short years.
Qsymia Nothing More than Repackaged Fen-Phen
The new anti-obesity drug Qsymia was created using two older drugs: topiramate and phentermine. If phentermine sounds vaguely familiar, let me jog your memory.
Fen-phen, the popular weight loss drug tied to heart valve damage and yanked from the market in 1997 was, you guessed it, one-half phentermine!
In a nutshell, this new anti-obesity drug Qsymia is fen-phen repackaged as … top-phen.
Thousands of lawsuits resulted from the damage caused by fen-phen with billions in settlements paid out to victims and their families.
That’s the standard business model in the pharmaceutical industry. Simply repackage a drug removed from the market by changing it up a bit, get it approved, and make a fortune fast. When it is yanked off the market for harming people (again), just settle the lawsuits. Just a normal cost of doing business, right?
In the end, Vivus will likely make much much more than will ever be paid out in future lawsuits from Qsymia, so it is a sound business decision for shareholders to get it out there and get the revenue flowing quickly.
This strategy is, of course, unethical, but it is perfectly legal and a proven way to generate huge profits for the drug industry in a short period of time.
Qsymia Side Effects
Acknowledged side effects of Qsymia include tingling in the hands and feet, constipation, dry mouth, dizziness, and insomnia.
Wait a minute – insomnia? Isn’t lack of sleep a recognized and very big cause for overweight problems in the first place?
What Obesity Medicine Specialists in their right minds would prescribe this for a patient?
It is important to note that the FDA initially rejected Qsymia, then known as Qnexa, in 2010 because of side effects including elevated heart rate, psychiatric problems, and birth defects. No worries, Vivus submitted additional “safety data”, with the drug application quickly approved.
Qsymia Doesn’t Help You Lose That Much Weight
Here’s the kicker. A patient prescribed Qsymia will take on all this unknown health risk from taking a drug that was previously removed from the market over 10 years ago. Worse, he/she probably won’t lose that much weight either. Hint: If you would like to know how long it takes to lose weight, this article tells you exactly with no gimmicks!
Documentation submitted to the FDA indicated that nearly 70% of patients taking Qsymia for an entire year lost only 5% of their body weight. This compares with 20% of patients taking a placebo losing the same amount!
This means that a 250 lb person would only lose 12.5 lbs after taking Qsymia for a full year.
This insignificant weight loss certainly wouldn’t reduce the long term health risk of anything weight related!
Eating Grassfed Meat Achieves Nearly the Same Results
An overweight or obese person would be much better off simply switching to grass-fed meat (here’s where to get it). A typical 6-ounce grass-fed steak has approximately 100 fewer calories than a conventional 6 oz steak from grain-fed cattle.
What’s more, since it is considerably more nutrient-dense, it fills you up better and you stay full longer. Since the average American consumes 66.5 lbs of beef per year, this simple change can have a profound effect! Such an easy tweak would translate to a 6-pound loss per year with all else remaining the same!
Eat grass-fed beef or take a new anti-obesity drug with many side effects that will no doubt be prescribed for children as well?
That’s an easy choice.
References
(1) Obesity Pill Qsymia Gains FDA Approval
(2) Young Americans Need to Cut Caloric Intake
(3) Eat Wild
Couch Potatoes Rejoice! Repackaged Fen-Phen Approved
No, I am not a couch potato! Your ignorance could cause, people who suffer from dysfunctions eg. DNA/Mitochondrial dysfunction a lot of unnecessary stress and fatigue. As it has with me. Your ignorance is cruel and damaging on all levels. Are you are a liar?. Is slander considered, as medical evidence?. Obesity is a medical condition that needs treatment, not a stylist.
I always emailed this webpage post page to all my contacts, because if like to read it after that my contacts will too.
seriously Valerie? Maybe you should be diagnoised 9 times with fibramyalgia & then be sedated for a different surgury only to have your Doctors Note you had a spinal injury that fused your neck Shoulders!…………I told the Doctors at every visit it was’nt fibromyalgia it was from Knocking myself out at the bottem of the pool …or going throught the windshield in an accident…or my seat giveing way in a car accident….I REFUSED to be diagnoised with Fibramyalgia so they couldnt put me on Disability!.
I was put on Topiramate (Topamax) for migraine prevention (before I knew better). I did lose weight…and my sex drive…and my mind! Didn’t prevent my migraines! Not good!
Sorry Liz, I have had one excellent dr. She was my OB/GYN Dr. Mary Mirto in Austin and delivered all of my children. The one and only pleasant experience i’ve had. Are you so naive that traumatic experiences don’t happen to real people hundreds of times a day? Also, to say that someone hates medical professionals is a strong statement to make about someone who genuinely cares about people and their health. Who are you to tell someone that they should stick to writing about one subject only because it offends you in some way? If you don’t like it then don’t read it. Just as you said if you don’t like medical professionals then don’t go to them. If you’re sick of your profession as a whole being bashed then you may want to find a new profession. It’s not gonna stop until your profession stops selling out to Big Pharma. Perhaps you could do some research on your own that they didn’t teach you in medical school on your down time. I’d think you would be quite busy on a Tuesday afternoon treating very sick patients instead of being on Facebook. Who would’ve guessed that ever happened??
@ Liz Hull , good to hear that you take your patients health from side effects into consideration. Due to an accident I have been a part of the medical world for more than half my life. I cannot tell you how many Dr.’s I have seen that really only cared about bandaid work( treating the symptoms and not the problem) nor how many unnecessary drugs I have been prescribed. Hopefully for all of us there really are more Dr.’s out there that care more about the person than the almighty dollar. It is good to know that you are open to real nutrition which we can follow through blogs like this one.
Its these same people that take this stuff that also blame society for their problems left and right, day in and day out.
Again Wow…..Painting a Pretty picture of Healthcare has never been a luxury I have exsperianced….I would love to Have a Doctor who read from the reports & gave factual information concerning my health & delt with the underlying causes without throwing me under the acceptable side effects bus in the little bag of pills.
Keep burying your head in the sand. I’m sure there’s a pill for that too.
Liz Hull, I think your numbers are completely wrong. 99% are trying to help??!! Doctors DO push pharmaceuticals on me and my kids ALL OF THE TIME! This is a fact. Don’t you read the comments from real people on her posts? Sorry if that is a tough pill for you to swallow(pun intended). I’ve walked out of more “medical professionals” offices than I can count on 2 hands and feet. I would love for my family to be treated like people and not numbers when we go to the dr. and not get scolded for choosing not to immunize my children or put them on antibiotics that aren’t necessary most of the time. I don’t like medical advice so I no longer seek it. It’s MUCH more pleasant that way. 🙂