Weight- loss pill warning: 3 women tell their stories. You can't escape the ads. They pop up on TV, on your Twitter feed, on your Facebook page: . Some of these products have been widely touted as safe or downright miraculous. Even Mehmet Oz, M. Safe and reliable weight-loss solutions have never been so easy! Oz explores the latest diet trends, fitness regimes and lifestyle changes to provide you with the. Hit a Weight Loss Plateau? If you're frustrated that the last 10 pounds you need to lose just won't come off, Robert Reames, fitness trainer and. Oz called Garcinia Cambogia Extract (HCA) the Holy Grail of Weight Loss. He went on to say, “Anytime I see a scientist get this excited about something. Oz approved is luring women in record numbers. Don't Buy Garcinia Cambogia Until You Know You Are Getting One That Works. When you want to lose weight, the safest way to go is the natural way. D., the trusted Dr. Oz, has made headlines because he's featured controversial ingredients on his show. In June he was called to testify at a Senate hearing, where he faced tough questions from Senator Claire Mc. Caskill (D–Mo.). Women who would never dream of taking an old- school chemical diet pill may wonder: Are natural products a safe, easy answer to losing those extra pounds? Cheap Weight Loss Camps for Adults: we picked 3 cheap fat camps for adults that are affordable and produce amazing results.Start the NHS weight loss plan. Develop healthier eating habits and get more active with the NHS Choices weight loss guide. To schedule a free consultation at a Quick Weight Loss Center near you, please complete the following form. When you're looking for a weight loss program, it's wise to look for one that will meet your needs and set you up for long-term success. In general, look for programs. You are leaving AARP.org and going to the website of our trusted provider. The provider’s terms, conditions and policies apply. Please return to AARP.org to learn. Related: 2. 0 Superfoods For Weight Loss. That's what Kari Skitka was hoping. The 2. 4- year- old marketing associate, based in New York City, thought she'd found the answer in a bottle of raspberry ketone pills. But I thought I could handle it. I was willing to endure some negative side effects because I knew I wouldn't be taking it forever. I was looking at it as a short- term solution. But she finally decided the symptoms weren't worth it. She stopped taking the pills, the side effects went away, and eventually she gained back every pound. Still, she was relatively lucky: Other women who have taken these and other seemingly natural weight loss supplements have experienced side effects ranging from mild to extreme—some even life- threatening. It may seem hard to believe, but dietary supplement manufacturers (unlike pharmaceutical companies) don't have to prove that their products work or even that they're safe. They don't have to get approval from the FDA before selling them to the public. In 1. 99. 4, Congress passed a law called the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, which determined that supplements should be regulated as foods, not drugs. Related: Secrets To Firing Up Your Metabolism. That means the rules are less rigorous, which has unsurprisingly been a boon to the industry. Before 1. 99. 4, there were about 4,0. Today they number approximately 8. Some 1. 80 million Americans spend more than $3. Pieter Cohen, assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, who has studied the dangers of nutritional supplements extensively. She wanted something to kick- start her regimen of running, swimming and Spinning. So the 2. 7- year- old went to a Brooklyn, New York, health food store, where, a year and a half earlier, she'd bought some diet pills. Theodore had lost 1. Now, she thought she'd try again. Related: 6 Moves To Resize Your Butt and Thighs. This time, she was directed to a supplement called Natural Lipo X. Theodore knew she was sensitive to caffeine (it makes her heart feel fluttery). According to a lawsuit she has filed against the store, Theodore was told that the pills did not contain caffeine and had . Two nights after starting Natural Lipo X, Theodore says, she began experiencing sleeplessness that would turn into complete insomnia; three days later, she stopped taking the pills. After about a week of little or no sleep, she had a breakdown. She lashed out at coworkers and friends and inexplicably stopped her car in the middle of an intersection one night. When she awoke, clearheaded, in the psych ward, she told a doctor about the Natural Lipo X. Later, she learned that the guarana- seed extract in the pills can contain twice as much caffeine as coffee beans. The lawsuit alleges that the pills also illegally included sibutramine, a stimulant that the FDA has warned can lead to anxiety, insomnia and even heart attacks; and phenolphthalein, a laxative ingredient now considered to be possibly carcinogenic. The label did not include the name and address of the manufacturer, which are required by the FDA. Even now, neither Theodore nor her lawyers know who made the pills. And the health food store has denied the allegations in the suit. Theodore says she was unable to work for two months after she left the hospital. She adds that she worries about how this episode might affect her, professionally and personally, in the future. Last summer, Senator Dick Durbin (D–Ill.) proposed a law requiring supplement companies to submit a list of ingredients to the FDA, and for products to carry a label warning of possible adverse reactions. The industry opposes the legislation, and at press time, the bill was still in committee. For now, the only way to ensure your safety is to avoid diet supplements completely. Karina Lujan wishes she'd never tried them. She says she first took Oxy. Elite Pro in 2. 01. The 3. 7- year- old Texan was already plenty active: She regularly hit the gym with her husband, ran up and down stadium stairs and went for bike rides with her three boys. But she says she wanted to lose the baby weight she was still carrying after giving birth to her fourth child. She thought Oxy. Elite Pro might help rev up her workouts, so why not give it a try? One day after a dose, Lujan says she was walking up a flight of stairs when she suddenly felt out of breath. She started sweating and felt tremendous pain and pressure in her upper body, and her arm went numb. It turned out she was having a heart attack. She's taking blood thinners and medication to control her heartbeat. According to a lawsuit she filed against USPlabs, the manufacturer of Oxy. Elite Pro, she has lost 1. She says she also has tachycardia, a condition that makes her heart beat too fast. She has yet to venture back to the gym or return to her bike riding. According to the FDA, it's an amphetamine derivative that can lead to heart attacks. In 2. 01. 2, the agency issued letters to 1. USPlabs, warning them that DMAA was illegal and calling on them to remove it from their products. Initially USPlabs questioned the FDA's legal basis for the order, but eventually the company eliminated the ingredient, recalled products from retailers and destroyed its own inventory when threatened with stronger FDA action. In 2. 01. 3, USPlabs released a new version of Oxy. Elite Pro that contained aegeline, a synthetic version of a natural extract found in an Asian tree. In Hawaii last year, 4. Other cases of Oxy. Elite- related injuries came to light. In all, nearly 1. In November last year, the FDA called on USPlabs to recall the product. USPlabs said it knew of . Six Hawaiian consumers have also sued USPlabs. Despite all of these problems, natural- sounding weight loss supplements continue to attract women. Karen Jacobs- Poles, a nurse at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center in Philadelphia, tries to be cautious about what she puts in her body. But the forty- something mother of three wanted to lose about 3. Then, one night in 2. Slimquick, a diet supplement that billed itself as tailored to the problems women have losing weight, Jacobs- Poles said. After a couple of weeks, though, she started to notice that she was more tired than usual. But it kept getting worse, and eventually she felt fatigued all the time. Then a coworker noticed that her eyes had turned bright yellow, a symptom of a sick liver. Doctors diagnosed her with jaundice, acute hepatitis and an enlarged liver. Her suit contends that this was a direct result of ingesting Slimquick ingredients. How was I to know it would make me so sick instead? In their response to the lawsuit, the company that distributes Slimquick, Platinum US Distribution, denies responsibility for Jacobs- Poles's liver problems, saying that the products are made by third- party contractors. An analysis by the National Institutes of Health's Drug- Induced Liver Injury Network of patients with liver illness from dietary supplement use found that cases increased from 7 percent to 2. And while the potential for dangerous side effects is one huge reason not to take . In her review of hundreds of studies, Manore found that none of the products helped women lose more than a few pounds. The only way to be sure you're safe and not sorry? Do what Jacobs- Poles and other women wish they had done: Leave those weight loss supplements on the shelf. This article originally appeared on Self. Additional reporting by Sara Angle. Garcinia Cambogia: Weight- Loss Supplement May Be Toxic to Some. By Agata Blaszczak- Boxe, Staff Writer Published: 0. AM EDT on Live. Science The use of Garcinia cambogia, a popular weight- loss supplement, may pose health risks to people who are taking certain antidepressants, a recent case report suggests. Last year in Oregon, a 3. Garcinia cambogia supplements for two or three months while also taking an antidepressant started stuttering and sweating profusely. In the emergency room of a local hospital, the medical staff noted that the woman's heart rate and blood pressure were high, and that she had also developed foot clonus, involuntary muscle spasms that cause a person's foot to flex. The woman's symptoms were characteristic of serotonin toxicity, a drug reaction that occurs when levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin are too high. After the woman was given medication for serotonin toxicity and spent a few days at the hospital, her symptoms subsided and she eventually recovered. Robert Hendrickson, one of the authors of the case report. However, previous studies on people and animals have shown that Garcinia cambogia may, indeed, increase serotonin levels. And taking the supplement in combination with antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which also cause serotonin levels to rise, could lead to serotonin toxicity, said Hendrickson, a toxicologist at the Department of Emergency Medicine of Oregon Health and Sciences University. Hendrickson added that, based on the animal and human data suggesting both SSRIs and Garcinia increase serotonin levels, he recommends that people who are taking an SSRI not use Garcinia, at least until further research is done. However, researchers have so far found only mixed results when looking at whether the supplement really helps weight loss. And one study in rats suggested that extremely high doses of Garcinia may cause testicular atrophy, and toxicity. The woman in the case report had been previously diagnosed with serotonin toxicity while she was taking a different kind of antidepressant. At that time, she had also been taking Garcinia for a month or two, but she didn't tell the doctor who prescribed her antidepressant that she had also been taking the weight- loss supplement, Hendrickson said. Therefore, her doctor attributed her first case of serotonin toxicity to her first antidepressant, and switched her to another one. Then, she developed her second case of toxicity, for which Hendrickson saw her. Another potential, but less likely, trigger of the reaction, could have been the SSRI that she had been taking. Moreover, it is also possible that although the supplement she was taking was labeled as Garcinia, it might not have contained the supplement, but rather some other substance, Hendrickson said. Medications are highly regulated. Whereas people can be relatively certain that a bottle of medication contains the ingredients that it is supposed to contain, the same cannot be said about supplements. Previous research has shown that some supplements did not contain the herbs or other substances that their bottles said they contained. Moreover, there have also been instances in which other substances sold as supplements contained pharmaceutical agents, Hendrickson said. For instance, valerian root supplement pills that are sold as an herbal sleep aid have been found to contain valium, as it was cheaper for the pill manufacturer to use the drug than the herb, he said. However, most capsules labeled Garcinia likely do include Garcinia, Hendrickson said. And because previous studies have shown that Garcinia causes a serotonin increase, it is quite likely that this also occurred in the case discussed in the study, the researchers said. The study was published online April 4 in the Journal of Medical Toxicology. Follow Agata Blaszczak- Boxe on Twitter. Follow. Live Science @livescience, Facebook& Google+. Original article on Live Science. Copyright 2. 01. 4 Live. Science, a Tech. Media. Network company. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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