Reasons to Try Diet Medications

1. Ultimately this should be a decision between you and your health care provider. For those chronically dieting, chronically fighting will power, failing to lose after faithfully follow a reasonable plan, perhaps medical management is what you need. Liraglutide became the fifth available obesity drug in the United States, after orlistat (Xenical and Alli), lorcaserin (Belviq), phentermine-topiramate (Qsymia), and bupropion/naltrexone (Contrave). Other medications, such as phentermine are also used for weight loss in selective patients.

2. Overweight or obesity and medical problems should be managed medically, whether it’s with a diet medication or not. Have your health care provider help you determine if you are overweight. Do you have blood sugars that are abnormal? If you have medical problems already some studies say that medication can make weight loss faster but have more complications due to increased medicine side effects.

3. Maybe all the changes you have made up to now have not helped your blood cholesterol normalize. Are your lipid tests abnormal (including cholesterol)? Based on your genetics sometimes you just cannot normalize your numbers on diet alone, whether you lose weight or don’t lose weight with diet medicines.

4. Some weight gain is due to poor carbohydrate intolerance. One of the relatively newer medication indication, for weight loss, has been approved by the FDA for the diabetes medication liraglutide. This medication Saxenda, by the company Novo Nordisk. So using medicine can help you both lose weight and be overall more healthy and even less likely to develop diabetes in the future.

5. Diet medications make lifestyle changes more effective for weight loss, and some studies indicate, even without significant lifestyle factors such as exercise and activity with the right medication women can lose weight.

6. On their own women often will diet, yet in 6 months will regain all their weight, on chronic medication management, many patients will maintain weight loss.

7. Although some nutritional plans can help you lose, will power to stay on the plan can be difficult. Diet medications can aid that will power through the physiological ways they work.

8. More rapid weight loss can occur with diet medications. Those individuals who lose wight more rapidly are more likely to adopt exercise regimens that give heart benefits beyond those that are obtained from weight loss alone.

Although early data shows that women could lose 44% in 16 weeks, by the end of a year of medication, the average loss is about 8% due to lapses in lifestyle changes.