Weight Loss Update on FDA Panel Recommending Making Lap-Band Surgery Available to 12 Million More People
Friday, January 28th, 2011
There’s a great article from the Alliance for Natural Health organization about the FDA recommending making lap-band surgery available to 12 million more people. It indicates how more than 1/3 of our population is obese, and about 15 million qualify for this procedure. However, the FDA recommends making this available to the less obese, as well, or 12 million more. There are risks involved obviously, including ulceration, swallowing difficulty, gastritis, dehydration, weight regain, constipation and even death. The lap band can slip or leak, and the stomach can get blocked or even slip, and the lap-band can erode into the stomach. It’s also a very expensive procedure.
Another FDA advisory panel recommended approving weight loss drug, “Contrave”, indicating that the benefits of this diet pill outweight the dangers of an elevated pulse and blood pressure. They also said that a large study of the cardiovascular risk of the drug “can wait until after the drug is approved”??!
Contrave combines two approved drugs that target different parts of your brain that influence cravings and appetite. It contains “Bupropion”, an anti-depressant that’s also used for smoking cessating, and “Naltrexone”, which is a treatment for alcohol and pain killer addiction. Many studies show the addictive qualities of the conventional antidepressant drugs, so many people could become addicted to an anti-depressant.
The FDA has two standards of effectiveness for any weight loss drug that it reviews. It’s suppose to help patients lose at least 5% of their weight over 56 weeks or 13 months. For example, a 300 pound man would lose only about 15 pounds during that time. It’s suppose to show a 5% benefit over a “placebo”. Contrave met the first standard, but failed the second one. However, the panel’s recommending its approval despite this.
This comes following Glaxo Smith Klein petitioning the FDA to stop supplement producers from making weight loss claims about their products at all– If it’s approved, only FDA-approved drugs would be able to do this (fine by me).
You can review their Action Alert on this from October (which also discusses the side effects of the Glaxo product). If you haven’t already, you can send a message to the FDA, telling them not to allow pharmaceutical companies to use the “Citizen Petition” process for their own financial gain.
To read the full article, go here:
Let me know your thoughts or questions on this.
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