But you will be surprised to learn how many of weight loss drugs prescribed by doctors can cause side effects that cause long term damage to major body organs.
If you are serious about surviving a disaster, you need to rethink how you are going to manage weight loss. If you are on a drug named in a class action lawsuit, or there are other problems with the drug, it’s time for a second opinion. If you have done everything else to prepare for a major collapse event, why let this one overlooked area to ruin all your plans?
Conditions Weight Control Drugs Treat
As a matter of things in common, all weight loss drugs seek to make it easier for individuals to get rid of excess fat and water. Depending on the nature of the drug in question, some may achieve this goal by curbing appetite while others prevent the absorption of fat into the body.
Weight loss drugs are not the same thing as cholesterol reducing agents. In most cases, even though the person loses weight, it does not always follow that their cholesterol levels will go down.
Overall, when a person reaches their target weight, the doctor will stop prescribing weight loss drugs. While this may make sense at some level, many people wind up going right back on these medications when their weight goes back up again.
The next time around, weight tends to go on even faster, and excess tends to be even harder to get rid of. Today, there are no second and third tier drugs for weight loss that are designed to address yo-yo weight ranges, let alone a maintenance pill that enables a person to stay at an optimal weight as opposed to continuing to lose weight.
What Changes the Media Doesn’t Emphasize
You’ve read dozens of articles and watched dozens of news reports on the consequences of obesity, as marketing of diet pills, herbs, exercise programs, and diets remains one of the biggest businesses. So every one of these sources tacitly blames the individual for “not eating a healthy diet”, or failing to follow USRDA guidelines.
Many people don’t actually sit down and track their food intake to find out they are most likely within the guidelines, yet still obese because those guidelines may be wrong for them. Here are just a few more matters related to obesity that you will rarely hear about in mainstream media, yet they are the main factors that may be preventing you from losing weight naturally:
- Almost all sources of commercial meat and dairy are fed using gmo grains, growth hormones and antibiotics. All of these enter your body and may appear as toxins. While some toxins are flushed out of your body, others appear so dangerous that your body will actually store them up in fat molecules so that they can be gotten rid of later on and at a slower pace.
- Almost all sources of commercial meat are hosed down with arsenic, bleach, or radiation. As such, your body is taking on an even bigger toxic load that, in turn, leads to obesity, cancer, heart disease, and metabolic syndrome disorders.
- The vast majority of soybean, corn, and many other fruits and vegetables are GMO products. These foods have been shown time and time again to cause animals (and humans) to put on excess weight. As long as you continue to eat these foods, your body will put on water and fat as fast as it can.
- USRDA recommendations for caloric intake and nutrient breakdown are only averages. Consider your activity levels and use a more precise calculator to determine how many calories you should be taking in to lose weight or maintain a healthy weight. Very few, if any media sources and medical providers will tell you to compare these numbers to your actual diet log to see if these ratios and intake levels are actually working for you. Instead, they will recommend more pills and more fads that don’t work.
- Just about every processed food contains preservatives, taste, color, and other enhancers that cause weight gain. It can take weeks to months on end before your body sheds these chemicals and begins to respond to dietary measures. During that time, cravings related to vitamin and other deficiencies caused by these toxins will make it even harder to lose weight, have enough energy to exercise, and maintain an ideal caloric intake.
- In the end, you need a good textbook on human nutrition on hand, a good bit of information on the food industry, and the capacity to grow your own food if you plan on losing weight, maintaining an ideal weight, and be healthy all at the same time.
How Is This Condition Hampering Your Survival?
Are you still wondering how obesity can affect your survival efforts? Here are just a few ways:
- If you need to walk, run, cycle, or lift heavy items, it will take more strength to lift the fat and water on top of everything else. Unless you are a body builder, or have more muscle mass than fat, the extra weight will count against you.
- Breathing and blood circulation are both hindered when fat and water put pressure on blood vessels, which means you cannot utilize oxygen or food sources as efficiently.
- Even though strenuous activity burns fat, that burning action also releases kidney killing toxins into your body, including ketones that are created when the liver converts fat into glucose. Ketone burning is just one of many reasons why crash diets and other sudden weight loss protocols can cause serious, long term harm to your health. If you are in a crisis situation that leads to sudden weight loss, you will still have those long term damages to contend with.
- In the long run, the more excess water and fat you have in your body, the greater the chance all kinds of toxins are being stored along with it. Some of these toxins are notorious for causing cancer, heart disease, and many other illnesses. To add insult to injury, in the post crisis world, there may not be as much information available on how to get these toxins safely out of your body, let alone the necessary items. While often overlooked, detoxing your body and pursuing a healthy weight and diet is truly one the most important parts of prepping.
- Chances are, you have been told that your body stores up fat and water so that it can be used during a crisis situation. Even though this may be true to some extent, the fact of the matter is that simply letting all that weight hang around is not a viable survival strategy. You are far better off making sure that you are fit enough to hunt, gather, or grow food, defend yourself, and engage in any number of strenuous physical tasks. Never forget that the body can only live for about 3 weeks without food and less than 3 days without water. Even if you are obese, that window will not change.
Basic Drugs and How They Work
When talking about “diet pills”, there are several that cannot be used for long term, but only for a few weeks to a few months. After that window closes, the drug is no longer effective at helping people lose weight.
These drugs really don’t work any different than diet and exercise in this respect. No matter what weight loss method you use, your body will always try to maintain the status quo. As such, within just a few weeks, your body will have developed a tolerance, or series of coping behaviors that prevent further weight loss. If you are considering using herbals and think that you can simply stay on them for life and keep your weight down. If you are on weight loss drugs and would prefer not to have them interfere with long term survival goals. At the very least, you can try a more varied weight loss system so that you can avoid these drugs and live a healthier life.
Fat Absorption Blockers (Xenical/Alli)
Even though carbohydrates are converted to fat, most weight loss experts recommend cutting back on dietary fats as the main method for losing weight. Fat absorption blockers prevent your body from taking in approximately 33% of consumed fats. Instead, the fats pass through your body much as insoluble fiber and other things that cannot be digested. It should be noted that these drugs often have significant side effects that can be somewhat mitigated when you consume less fat to begin with.
Appetite Suppressants (Belviq, Contrave, Phentermine, Qsymia)
For many people, the sensation of hunger comes before their stomach starts growling. No matter whether you start getting the urge to snag a banana from the refrigerator or snack on some candy, appetite stimulation is a main factor in determining how much food you eat. When you use appetite suppressants, you will not be as inspired to eat between meals, and you may also want to eat less at regular meal times. Contrave is different from other drugs used for appetite suppression because it is a combination of two psychiatric drugs used to treat depression and anxiety.
Bio Signal Changers (Saxenda)
Even though Saxenda is also something of an appetite suppressant, it actually works on the biological pathway between the stomach and the brain. In this case, Saxenda blocks the signal from your stomach that tells your brain that it is time to eat. Interestingly enough, Saxenda at different dosages is also used as a treatment for diabetes because the stomach also triggers a number of other interactions that are involved in the processing of glucose.
How Drug Issues Kill Your Survival Chances
AS long as you are on diet pills, there are going to be side effects that make it harder for you to survive. Here are just a few things that may happen. (Some drugs will cause more problems than others, and that this is a general list that may not apply to every drug mentioned in the above section.)
- Xenical and other drugs used to block fat uptake can cause a complete loss of bowel control. For example, if you are in a shootout or trying to get away from looters, the last thing you need is for the stink of diarrhea to give away your location.
- Even if you are able to reduce fat intake to a point where the drugs do not cause significant side effects, you may have problems if you wind up having to eat more fatty foods. If you must hunt for food or eat greasy MREs, these drugs can get you very sick, which will make it much harder to carry out basic needs in the post crisis world.
- Many drugs (like Contrave) used to treat depression and anxiety are known to increase the risk of suicidal thinking and suicide. Let’s just say that diet pills of this nature may do more harm than good in a situation where society has collapsed or you it literally seems like the world is ending. It should also be noted that just about every drug used to treat anxiety and depression causes permanent harmful changes to the neural circuitry in the brain. If you are in a crisis and don’t understand why you can’t think straight, diet pills may be interfering. If you have used these kinds of pills in the past, you may need to start from now to work with meditation and other alternative means to self-monitor and develop more appropriate coping strategies.
- Some appetite suppressants and other drugs used to treat obesity can cause long term heart, kidney, and liver damage. It is fair to say that the more you use these drugs, the higher the risk of developing both sudden and serious health problems in the short term and long range future.
Class Action Lawsuits and Other Matters to Know About
You may say we are joking with these harmful effects of diet pills, but here are some ongoing class action lawsuits related to both over the counter and prescription based weight loss drugs:
- OTCs containing Ephedra/ephedrine – appetite suppressants that primary pulmonary hypertension or “PPH”. PPH is an incurable progressive disease in which the arteries leading to the lungs and into the heart itself experience too much pressure. This, in turn, can lead to permanent damage to both lung and heart tissue.
- Xenical/Alli – In 2009, the FDA conducted a safety review of these drugs and determined that they do, in fact, cause long term kidney damage and may also cause liver damage and failure. If you have used these drugs, do not hesitate to get copies of your blood work and contact a lawyer to see if you can sue for damages.
- Contrave – there is at least one class action lawsuit against Orexigen, the manufacturer of Contrave because of misleading information about the drug’s usefulness for treating obesity. There may also be possible private lawsuits related to cardiac damage caused by this drug. (rgrdlaw.com/news-press-Orexigen.html)
- Qsymia – at the current time, the FDA is directing the manufacturer to do additional studies to find out if there is an increased risk of heart damage and also increased risk of suicidal thinking. Unfortunately, there are no requirements for heart monitoring while using this drug or Belviq even though the drugs are similar in nature to ones pulled off the market for this particular reason.
- Saxenda (also known as Victoza for diabetes treatment) – there is growing interest in launching a class action lawsuit against the manufacturer of this drug because there is an increased risk of getting pancreatic disease and cancer, thyroid tumors, heart problems, and gallbladder problems. Results of additional studies on this drug are expected to be released in 2016.
What You Need to Ask Your Doctor
See your doctor immediately if you are taking diet pills, or have taken them in the past. If you have not had heart function studies or routine blood work, then it is time to get this testing done as quickly as possible. If your doctor will not help you or feels there is no risk, self-refer to a cardiologist and a urologist (for possible kidney damage), and a liver specialist.
Get all copies of your blood work. Even if your results start falling outside of the normal reference ranges, your doctor may not say anything because your current quality of life is not disrupted by any particular disease process, or there is nothing they can do about the early stages of anything that may be going on. In fact, when you go to a specialist, they may also tell you that there is nothing to worry over, or that there is “nothing remarkable” to discuss.
Always get copies of your test results and make sure that you do your own research. Today, the power to investigate is truly in the hands of the people via a number of laws that prevent doctors from simply keeping test results and other information to themselves. Make good use of that information so that you can take better care of yourself.
When you don’t have information about trends occurring in your overall health from year to year, it becomes even harder to make important changes such as smoking cessation, increasing exercise, and pursuing a healthier diet. Knowledge is power, and that power truly needs to be in your hands even if you need to do a lot of research and get a number of second opinions to find out what you need to know.
Being obese is a silent killer that can rob you of years as well as quality of life during your remaining years. On the other hand, simply taking diet pills may not be the best answer because there are some serious side effects associated with these drugs. In some cases, you may be better off with a surgical procedure or pursuing some other course to lose weight.
Your long term ability to manage a major crisis still depends on what you do and don’t do now about your health. As with any other part of prepping, if you make the right choices now, you will have a better chance of surviving and thriving in the post crisis world.
Find out how diet pills impacted your health as well as the benefit tradeoffs associated with losing weight. Think things through carefully and get information from multiple sources. Ask questions, demand answers, and then test those answers through multiple channels until you feel confident about your choices and the health trend your doctors seek to set on your behalf.
This article has been written by Carmela Tyrell for Survivopedia.
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