Fat burning pills. Are they dangerous?

Everywhere you look nowadays pills are available for everything. The sole reason these pills keep cropping up are because of the high demands. The marketers obviously exploit this and make a killing selling of the next set of “best fat burning pills”.
Does anyone ever question if these even work? A day does not go by when I notice a new brand on the market is out and people are convinced that this is the next best weight loss pill. When do we learn to use common sense before committing to such behavior of trying new chemicals hoping to lose weight miraculously?

So does this mean that diet pills, fat burning pills do not work? Well yes and no is the answer. Again go back to common sense- What is the essential component required to lose weight… Well it is negative caloric balance. Calories are energy and simply put if I consume 2000 Kcal per day and burn out 2500 Kcal per day I will be in negative caloric balance. Now I ask you where do you think are these -500 Kcal coming from…Have you heard of Einstein’s law of conservation of energy. If you have not then I would suggest you look into it. As per this rule of physics the -500 Kcal has to come from another source and therefore will come from the Carbs, fat stored in our bodies. It has to, there is no other way. So theoretically if I burn out 10,000 Kcal and consume only 2000 Kcal per day I will use of 8000 Kcal of energy which will come from fat or carbs stored in my body. This will translate into weight loss.

So we all know this but how does this help someone looking to get fat burning tablets. Well medications like Xenical decrease absorption of fat and therefore help you absorb less Kcal. Similarly Sibutramine helps suppress diet therefore you consume less Kcal. These provide adjuncts to helping fat burning, but would they work if you still continue to be lazy and continue to be in positive caloric balance…ofcourse not. They are not magic pills- you have to work at it. Like I said earlier that they are adjuncts in weight loss treatment.

Take another scenario, people who are hyperthyroid have very high levels of thyroid hormones. Some body builders use thyroid hormones to artificially boost their metabolism as well. Again they lose weight because they are burning more calories through basal metabolism than what they are consuming- result is weight loss.

So if you are still looking for the best weight loss pills you may just find that there really is not anything like that. You can adjunct treatments with fat burning pills to help you lose weight but the ultimate responsibility falls onto you.

In short if you do more work (Force x distance) than what you eat you will lose weight as you will be expending energy converted from burning fats in your body. This is the law of physics. Fat burning pills are helpful in reducing the work load on your end but only the FDA approved medications should be used.