Alli and Xenical Diet Pills Reviewed by FDA
Have you suffered from physical ailments due to the use of Xenical or Alli weight loss drugs?
If so, you aren’t alone.
In August of 2009, the Food and Drug Administration announced that it would be undertaking a safety review of Xenical and Alli due to the fact that 32 reports of serious liver injury had been reported to their Adverse Reporting System. Of these 32 instances of liver injury, 26 of these victims were hospitalized, while 6 of the victims underwent liver failure.
Xenical and Alli are the commercial names for the drug Orlistat, which is a commercially available drug that is meant to help its users lose weight. Xenical contains a heavier dose of the drug and is only available with a prescription, while Alli contains about half as much of the dose of Orlistat as Xenical, and is therefore available as an over the counter purchase.
Orlistat works by inhibiting the enzymes that absorb fat from the food that you eat. It essentially makes practically all of the food you eat low fat, regardless of whether or not it was that way when you ate it initially. The fat that is not digested is excreted through the gastro intestinal tract. With Xenical, about 30% of the dietary fat that is eaten is not digested, while with Alli that number drops to around 25%.
The more obvious (and disturbing) side effects of Orlistat involve the sort that you would expect with a drug that directly affects what you digest and what you don’t. There have been reports of incontinence, oily stools, difficulty controlling bowel movements, an increased number of bowel movements, loose stools, or gas with oily spotting. These are the basic unpleasant side effects that initially led the group Public Citizen to call for it to be taken off the shelves here. Public Citizen also released a study which shows that Orlistat significantly increases the incidence of aberrant crypt foci, which are known to be precursors to colon cancer.
Other side effects have also been shown to occur from use of Xenical or Alli. Users have been known to break out in hives and rashes, suffer from profound itching, experience continuous abdominal pain, and have irregular periods, as well as headaches and anxiety.
So far, the litany of bad side effects seems to seriously outweigh the benefits of the loss of a few pounds. And the idea that Alli can do all this to the body and doesn’t require a prescription boggles the mind. But the instances of liver failure are of great concern to us, particularly since the Food and Drug Administration has decided to continue to allow the marketing and sale of the drug while their investigation and safety review goes on.
America is a country that is obsessed with weight and body image, and we have a history of engaging in destructive behavior in order to shed a few pounds. For decades, women were taking “diet pills” that turned out to be little more than speed. Then there was Fen Phen, a diet pill combination that caused pulmonary hypertension and even death among the people who used it.
There is an enormous industry in low fat and low calorie foods in America. Diet sodas out sell regular sodas. The shelves are stocked with low fat foods, from snacks to appetizers to entrees. The end result of this mindset is that most Americans believe that any sort of fat is bad. But the problem there is that fat is actually quite important to our intake of nutrients. Vitamins A and D are both fat soluble and require fat to be absorbed into the body. Orlistat not only interferes with the intake of fat, but as a consequence it also interferes with the intake of essential nutrients.
It’s also no wonder that this drug has been shown to harm the liver, as one of the main functions of the liver is to secrete bile, which is crucial to the digestion of dietary fat. If this basic function is negated by drugs, you can hardly expect the liver to continue to function properly.
Both Xenical and Alli are causing users all over America real physical harm. If you or a loved one has been injured due to the use of these diet pills, you may be eligible for financial compensation. Over the past twenty five years, the Washington, D.C. injury law firm of Greenberg and Bederman has been leading the way in helping people who have been injured due to the use of dangerous drugs. We are currently offering legal help to victims of Xenical and Alli who live in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.
Contact Greenberg and Bederman for a free alli diet pill injury legal consultation today.
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