Warning, GlaxoSmithKline and the FDA are reporting that counterfeit Alli is being sold via eBay and other online sources. Apparently the counterfeit drugs contain a controlled substance known as Sibutramine. There are several easy ways to tell if the Alli you have purchased is counterfeit:
Counterfeit Alli being sold via eBay
January 18th, 2010Processed foods make you sad, no really!
January 16th, 2010A story recently found on MSNBC highlights what most overweight folks know already, eating highly processed food makes us depressed. (and not just in that ‘I can’t believe I just ate’ that way, either) the story cites a study published in The British Journal of Psychiatry which analyzed the link between the food people ate and their mood. I personally have found this to be true.
Interesting read.
-Drew
TV – Taboo – Fat on National Geographic
January 15th, 2010National Geographic will be airing an episode of it’s show Taboo about the “Taboo” of being fat. The show will premier on Jan 20 at 10PM. It looks fairly interesting.
Check out the previews below.
-Drew
Creators of Alli making documentary about eating
January 14th, 2010GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) the makers of weight loss drug Alli are working on a documentary about the unhealthy relationship people sometime have with food. In an article published on CNBC.COM the parties involved assure CNBC that it will not be a marketing ploy, and that the film will be a real documentary in the vein of “An Inconvienient Truth”. Personally, I hope they consult with Dr. David Kessler when making the movie because his book “The End of Overeating” (which I am currently reading) has tremendous insight into why people do what they do.
I will be following this story closely.
-Drew
Atkins Advantage Shake Review
January 14th, 2010My girlfriend is seeking bariatric surgery from The OSU medical center and one of the requirements of their program is that she undergo a ‘living well’ class (which is basically a class that teaches you eat properly now and after your bariatric surgery). One of the ideas they gave her was to drink low-carbohydrate shakes like Slim Fast for two lunch and breakfast.
Why you fail to lose weight
September 4th, 2009Being overweight myself I have spent a great deal of time examining why I succeed and fail to lose weight at different times in my life. Two things immediately come to mind that help and they are having a strong motivator and having people who genuinely seem to have a vested interest in my success. The first one is easy but usually temporary, the second one is much much more difficult to achieve, mostly because of my own perception of the world and the other people I encounter in it.
Newsweek: Why America hates fat people
August 28th, 2009In case you missed it, there is an interesting article on newsweek.com about America’s hatred of fat people. As if we (fat people) didn’t hate themselves enough already.
Andy
More to Stereotype?
July 29th, 2009If you read my previous article entitled More to Exploit, you know that I was skeptical about the Fox network’s motives when it comes to their new show More to Love. My initial fears were fully realized last night while within the first five minutes of the premier. The premier essentially consisted of the 20 ‘contestants’ meeting the “big” winner Zack (pun intended..) and Zack trying to figure out which girls he wanted to keep around and which ones he was going to get rid of.
Zack himself seems like an opportunist rather than someone who is looking for love. In one scene (which was most likely edited this way) he was discussing how hard it would be for him to choose the women who would be going home, and in the very next breath implied that if the girl sitting with him would make out with him it would really help her chances of staying.
Throughout the show the focus shifted rapidly between what was going on in the house and private interviews with the women. One thing is for sure, they intentionally edited the potentially hundreds of hours of interviews to maximize the pathetic and socially inept factor of the plus sized women. At least two of them admitted that they had never been on a single date before and several of the women were in tears while describing their past experience while trying to find love.
FOX doesn’t seem to be doing the image of plus sized women any favors here, and if anything More to Love will most likely work to reinforce the stereotypes of plus sized women as being desperate, emotionally damaged, inept, and destined to be perpetually lonely.
From a purely entertainment standpoint, so far the show is just passable. FOX most likely put this show in the off-season because they knew that it wasn’t interesting enough to debut during the primetime fall season. I hope the first episode is not a indication of what is to come, because if it gets any more negatively skewed I would expect to start hearing cartoon like sound effects.
Drew
Contrave – an old new way to lose weight.
July 23rd, 2009Recently, the media has been all aflutter (here, here, and in many other places) about Contrave, the next great hope in weight loss drugs. Currently in FDA testing, Contrave is not a new drug at all, rather it is the combination of two drugs (Welbutrin and Naltrexone) which have been on the market for years. According to Orexigen Therapeutics Inc (the producer of Contrave) Contrave takes the metabolism boosting power of Welbutrin and combines it with the craving killing power of Naltrexone to help you lose weight.
Welbutrin has been used for years as an anti-depressant and Naltrexone is used to treat various addictions. With an almost combined 20 years of every day use by patients, I began to wonder if Contrave was anything to get excited about, at all. It occurred to me that if someone was so inclined that they could go to their doctor and get a prescription for both Welbutrin and Naltrexone bypassing that whole messy FDA phase three study thing we’ve all been hearing about.
So then why bother re-branding two drugs that have been available for a combined two decades? First, the FDA approves drugs for a specific purpose, and anything else is considered off label. Even if Topamax does help a lot of people lose weight, it is still a migraine/anti-seizure medication according to the FDA. If doctors prescribe you a drug for an off-label use, and it kills you your doctor could be in serious trouble. Second, a new weight-loss drug (especially one that won’t make your heart beat so fast that it kills you, or cause ‘leakage’) is sure to be a “blockbuster drug” just like Viagra or Cialis is which means an incredible amount of money for the Orexigen (and their investors).
It seems odd to me that research money was spent trying different combinations of drugs rather than trying to come up with a new and more effective way to treat obesity. Weight loss is a potential side effect of many drugs, but there are very few drugs (according to the FDA) which actually help people lose weight, and keep it off. If Contrave is approved for the treatment of obesity, then shouldn’t the treatment of obesity then be applied as label usages of both Welbutrin and Naltrexone? Make no doubt about it, Orexigen will be going to great lengths to make sure this doesn’t happen, and that is the problem with this entire situation.
I am all for anything that will make people lead healthier lives, at the same time Contrave seems like taking half of a Ford Mustang, and Half of a Dodge Challenger, combining them and calling it a Chalstang. You’re still taking two things that have exited for a really long time and blending them together. Could Contrave help a great number of people, lose weight? YES! Will it do a better job than just taking the sum of its parts (and at much much cheaper prices)?
I don’t see how it could.
Andrew
More to Exploit?
July 1st, 2009When I first heard about the premise and saw the preview for the upcoming Fox show More To Love. My mind began immediately swimming with different thoughts and feelings. On the one hand, it could be inspiring and uplifting for people to see plus sized women treated like human beings on national television. On the other hand, I see a few problems with the overall premise of this show.
First, “plus sized” women are not a new trend, a fad, or a fashion accessory for the summer of 2009. They are people, just like all the other contestants on all of the other reality shows. They have been around for quite a long time. I have a problem with the “mission” of this show, according to Fox More To Love is all about loving yourself and self-worth, I disagree entirely.
If Fox wanted to uplift “plus sized” women, they would’ve made a clone of ABC’s The Bachelor and made half of the women “regular” and half of the women “plus sized” and let the best woman win based on all of their attributes. Instead, by choosing (In Fox’s own words) “a single average guy with a big waist and an even bigger heart” as the prospective bachelor and choosing all “plus sized women” as the contestants, the show (and Fox) imply that all ‘big people’ should break off from the rest of society, pair up, have ‘big people babies’, and move to the mountains where they won’t bother anybody.
I argue that if the women that Fox has selected to participate in More To Love are so well adjusted, confident, and self-loving that they would have no problem ‘competing’ against any woman for any man. All of the press I have seen for More To Love tries to paint it as this big ‘coming out party’ for “plus sized” women, that Fox just discovered this long lost tribe out in a cave somewhere like King Kong and are bringing them to the world for the first time.
Maybe that is the point here? After all, who’s fault is it that people are so hung up on their weight in this country? Why are there so many women (in general, not even “plus sized”) who have a poor self image? Who sets the standard for beauty in the United States? You guessed it, the media. The fact is that this show wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for the constant and unwavering amount of self-hatred that people feel when they turn on their TV, read magazines, or watch movies. So “plus sized women” are okay as long as you’re exploiting them in some ridiculous fashion but when it comes time to cast a show at primetime guess what?
Sorry, no plus sized women to be found.
This is part of a larger trend in our society. All companies (not just media companies) need to stop pretending like they are doing people a favor by exploiting them, For a completely unrelated example the mortgage bubble was “a great opportunity for low-income families to become home-owners” just like More To Love is “[…] a dating show that sends the right message about embracing and loving yourself no matter your shape or size," as long as the person you’re interested in has “a big waist and an even bigger heart” otherwise, you’re completely out of luck.
-Drew