Alli – Do Less , Take More , Shit Longer

June 22, 2007

Alli – Do Less , Take More , Shit Longer

Diet Drug Alli Linked to Colon Cancer

The nonprofit group, Public Citizen says Alli, manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline, has been shown in studies to cause pre-cancerous lesions in the colons of mice. And, because there are no long-term studies of the drug’s effect on humans, the group believes the U.S. Food and Drug Administration should not have approved the drug for nonprescription use.

Dr. Sidney M. Wolfe, director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, said, while it is not known whether these pre-cancerous lesions will lead to colon cancer, he and other cancer experts do not believe use of the weight-loss drug is a risk worth taking.

First of all, the drug doesn’t work unless you have a certain amount of fat in your diet,” he said. “Most people that are on low-fat diets are eating a lot of carbohydrates. Well, Alli doesn’t block carbohydrates. On the other-hand, if you are eating a lot of fat in your diet, you’re going to end up saying to yourself, ‘I thought I was already toilet trained’ because 25 percent of the people use this drug get oily spotting.”

Anderson acknowledged that a weight loss of two to four pounds a month “isn’t dramatic,” but said steady weight loss can have major health benefits. “For example, the reduction in LDL-cholesterol, the bad-guy cholesterol, of 10 percent can reduce risk of heart attack by 20 percent,” he added.

But Wolfe disagreed and said the overweight people would do better to follow a healthy diet and exercising.

“The bottom line is that we have a public despearate for quick fixes in weight loss,” said Wolfe. “But there is no magic pill to fix something that needs to be fixed slowly and chronically. If you go on a low-fat diet with Alli, you’re probably going to lose seven-and-a-half pounds a month, compared to 5 pounds without it. But the studies also show that once you stop the drug, you regain the weight.”

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