Over the Counter Diet Pills
There are a wide variety
of diet pills available for purchase on today's market
for weight loss, and before you try them you should know
what types are available, and what the side effects of
the active ingredients are. The two most common active
ingredients used on today's
weight loss pill market are ephedra
and synephrine, or bitter orange.
Ephedra is used in popular
diet pills like Xenadrine, Hydroxycut, Metabolife, and
Ripped Fuel. Ephedra, a
thermogenic (increases the body's ability to store heat
and burn calories) when combined with caffeine and aspirin,
works as a weight loss agent by raising metabolism rates
and increasing your heart rate and blood pressure. Since
ephedra's introduction to the marketplace, harmful side
effects like stroke, heart attack, seizures, and death
have been reported. Although weight loss drug producers
like Herbalife defend their ephedra-based products, most
are phasing out these products due to the negative press
focused on ephedra. They are replacing it with a new herbal
active ingredient, synephrine.
Synephrine is the active
agent in bitter orange (Citrus aurantium) and is also
a thermogenic, but reportedly does not affect the heart.
While most major weight loss drug producers claim that
weight loss pills with the new active ingredient bitter
orange are safer than ephedra because they have a lower
intensity, many warn that the new product lines have not
been tested, and so the negative side effects have yet
to be revealed. In addition, when the other herbal ingredients
in these diet pills interact with synephrine, it could
result in an increased potency and/or absorption rate,
which might produce similar side effects to those of ephedra-based
weight loss products. New bitter orange-based diet pills
include Xenadrine EFX, Turbo Trim Plus Ephedra Free, and
Total Control, among others.
Atkins Diet