I used it last summer for a while and lost 20 pounds in short time. I have never that that side effect but I tried to limit myself to 20 grams of fat per day. The literature is correct, it's not going to take the place of dieting, but is used as a supplement.

I'm w/you, but for some reason, Mom just wanted to try it. She's a retired RN and is usually hip to diet fads. She's also 82, so I figure what the hey.

Why fool around with your body? The best and safest way to lose weight is to do it naturally, with diet and exercise. I don't like to put any drug, including aspirin into my body unless I absolutely have to.

By Melissa Dahl
Health writer
MSNBC
updated 8:01 a.m. ET, Fri., July. 6, 2007


Melissa Dahl
Health writer
• E-mail
Sometimes, you can’t stop your weight-loss secrets from leaking out.

Dieters have been flocking to drugstores to pick up Alli, the first over-the-counter weight-loss pill to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration, despite the scary warning: Stray too far from your low-fat diet and you just might poop your pants.

The drug’s maker, GlaxoSmithKline, has been up front about the pill’s side effects, suggesting that first timers wear dark pants or bring a change of clothes to work until they get used to the diet pill’s potentially yucky consequences.
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Still, it seems there’s no shortage of people willing to risk public humiliation to shed a few pounds. At one Los Angeles-area Walgreens, pharmacist Susie Uyu’s seen customer after customer march directly through the store toward the prominent Alli display. “I think they’re excited that it’s an over-the-counter product,” Uyu says.

And even though pharmacist Miyuki Anderson, who works at a Bartell Drugs in Seattle, warns everyone who eyes the Alli display about the messy side effects, it doesn’t stop most of them from buying the diet pill. (Anderson does, however, arm them with this helpful tip: “I tell the patients, try when you have a day off.”)

“We know it’s selling very well — better than we expected,” says Brian Jones, a GlaxoSmithKline spokesman. Jones declined to share any specific numbers. “But we don’t know if it’s going to last — there was a lot of pent-up anticipation.”

Anyone can try it
That anticipation refers to the origin of Alli; it’s the newly approved over-the-counter form of the prescription weight-loss drug Xenical. Now that it’s available in many major drugstores and grocery chains, it’s not just for the obese with a doctor’s prescription in hand — anyone who wants to lose a few can try it.

“The pill offers the promise of convenience, that someone has done the job for you,” says Adam Drewnowski, director of the Center for Public Health Nutrition at the University of Washington in Seattle. “People who don't live well, who stuff themselves with bags of snacks, in desperation they reach out for a pill.”

The drugmaker states very clearly that it’s no miracle drug, and only promises to help people toward moderate weight loss. For example, if someone were to lose 10 pounds from dieting, they’d lose 15 by combining their diet with Alli.

The diet pill works by blocking 25 percent of fat from being digested. Alli users take one pill with every meal, and to avoid an “Alli oops,” they should eat less than 42 grams of fat a day, or about 15 grams per meal. But those fat grams can be sneaky. One grande Starbucks Caramel Frappuccino contains 15 grams of fat, and if an Alli user adds even a low-fat muffin to that meal, it could get icky.

I think it sounds scary actually. The side effects are ridiculous!!! I wouldn't put up with it. If she's doing fine then good for her but a drug is a drug is a drug if ya ask me....

Placebo, something this good is bound to have side effects, If not. Congratulate her for me.

-Adeem