FDA Looking at 3 New Weight Loss Drugs

The FDA has a full schedule this week with the first of three new weight loss drugs pending approval. Qnexa is the first drug pending approval, made by Vivus, Inc. The review will be posted on this coming Monday.

Qnexa is not much different than any other weight loss drugs of the past. It is a combination of an anticonvulsant and an amphetamine. While this combination has been used in the past, it has had many side effects associated with its use. The Food and Drug Administration will need to decide if these side effects are acceptable to combat what they see as an obesity epidemic.

With the diabetes drug Avandia gaining most of the spotlight right now, not much news has been focused on these new drugs. The FDA must decide is weight loss actually occurs and if the health benefits are larger than the health risks.

There has not been much advancement in diet aids from the pharmaceutical companies. They have been slow to address the real problems causing obesity, and rely on the notion that it is all due to over eating. The last two major products that were designed to prevent overeating were pulled from the market when the first drug combination was causing heart damage and failure and the second drug caused irreparable bleeding of the brain. Consumers will have to use the product with caution until real world results will show if the product is good. Results like the ones found in relation to Avandia, that was once praised by the FDA, and is now responsible for over 100,000 deaths.