Diet pills are basically medical drugs for those people for whom nothing else has worked in their battle against the bulge – neither exercise nor dieting.

These pills are prescribed only to people who have a body mass index or BMI higher than 35. In other words, diet pills are prescribed for the morbidly obese. They are a healthy alternative to obesity-related surgery, of course, hence their popularity.

Diet pills are potential life-savers, as by helping reduce the fat in the body, these pills ensure that the person using them is safe from potentially lethal ailments like diabetes and heart disease.

In the health domain, the diet-pill industry has rapidly grown in size in the terms of production and sale of these drugs, and the profits accruing from such sales.

How do Diet Pills Work?

Diet pills, as you know by now, help reduce the excess body weight in the case of morbidly obese people. So how does this miracle happen, that too without dieting and exercise? The answer is simple, really. Diet pills do this through different mechanisms.

Appetite Suppressants

Certain diet pills work by suppressing the appetite. So a person who takes this variety of diet pills will not feel hungry, thereby leading to reduced food intake and therefore, reduced body weight.

Such pills are called anorexigenics or anorectics. While these may help cut the urge to eat, they can give a person a ‘high’, and be addictive in the long run. A good example of such pills is Dexedrine.

Some diet pills work by altering the natural processes inside the body, to be more specific, by causing alterations in the way the body absorbs nutrients from food. A good example of such a drug is Orlistat.

Orlistat interferes with the process of breaking down of fat inside the body; it prevents this process from happening. As a result, fat is not absorbed inside the body.

Increasing the metabolic rate

The third kind of diet pills work by increasing the metabolic rate of a person’s body. When the metabolic rate of a person becomes high, more and more energy gets used up, leading to depleted storage of starch and carbohydrates, thus reducing the chances of a person remaining obese.

While these pills achieve their basic aim, which is to provide much-needed weight loss to obese people, they come with their own sets of side effects. Some of these side effects are minor, and some are major. Next we will take a look at the side effects that these diet pills may have.

Diet Pill Review >>