Reminds me of the first FDA approved weight loss drug, Alli, that basically just gastrointestinally punishes you if you eat more than a few grams of fat.
My favorite fat loss drug along these lines is dinitrophenol. It is the true miracle fat burning drug. It interferes with cellular metabolism in such a way that the body just nonstop oxidizes fat. Fat mass loss in the order of a pound a day or more is entirely possible and some bodybuilders use it to get to a ludicrously low bodyfat percentage. Unfortunately oxidizing that much fat generates a lot of heat, so much that an overdose can be lethal because your body literally roasts itself to death and titration is extremely difficult. Oh and blindness is a common side effect. And for added fun it’s an high explosive. Needless to say it’s not FDA approved.
Honestly GLP-1 agonists will save lives just by being the go-to replacement for people who previously would have used DNP. GLP-1 agonists are effective enough that everyone in those circles basically stopped using DNP suddenly a couple years ago.
Never trust a fart on orlistat. The horror stories I’ve read of people soiling themselves after eating seemingly normal meals is nuts. On par with Olestra/Haribo sugar-free stories. Also it makes absorbing fat soluble vitamins a huge issue.
> The manual for Alli makes it clear that orlistat treatment involves aversion therapy, encouraging the user to associate eating fat with unpleasant treatment effects.
Christ. This is like Crohn's disease in pill form. One too many teaspoons of olive oil and you're in for an unpleasant evening...
I don't have a colon (but I do still have a functioning anus). The effects from orlistat are very similar to what I experience 24/7. If you're under 30 or so, eventually your sphincter gets much, much stronger and the excess oil stops affecting you nearly as much. You can hold it in indefinitely until your normal "need to go" timing. This takes about a year or so to train, and you'll have quite a few accidents in the meantime.
I still can't eat too much salmon in one sitting though :-( I don't get diarrhea but I do get stuck on the toilet for ages after.
There’s huge tradeoffs people rarely talk about in Medicine. Significant risk of soiling yourself vs a statistically significant reduction in risk of early death isn’t a big deal for the FDA.
In many cases the hell that is chemo is considered acceptable for even moderate increases in expected lifespan. That’s why people started talking healthy life expectancy vs just life expectancy.
You want to know what's even crazier, you can literally but it over the counter. I was at kroger the other day and I saw it next to the vitamins and I did a double take.
Reminds me of the first FDA approved weight loss drug, Alli, that basically just gastrointestinally punishes you if you eat more than a few grams of fat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlistat#Side_effects