Wednesday Aug 13, 2014 (foodconsumer.org) -- Obese individuals who want to take weight loss medications to lose weight should be aware that weight loss drugs are drugs and they can carry substantial risk and may induce a range of side effects or even adverse effects.The market statuses of some common weight loss drugs are described below:

• Fenfluramine and dexfenfluramine -  withdrawn - due to their potential damage to heart valves. 
• Sibutramine - withdrwan in 2010 - due to increased major adverse cardiovascular events.
• Rimonabant - withdrawn - because of significant psychiatric adverse effects. 
• Orlistat - approved in the United States and Europe, but many cannot tolerate it - due to its  gastrointestinal side effects. 
• Phentermine and diethylpropion - approved, can only be used for no more than 12 weeks - because the long-term safety of these drugs remains unknown. 
• Ephedrine and caffeine - natural supplements but the effects on weight reduction are modest. 
• Lorcaserin and topiramate plus phentermine - recently approved for the treatment of obesity but long-term safety remains unknown. 

Weight loss drugs are rare but many alternatives exist to help obese people to lose weight or prevent obesity.  Anti-obesity diets cannot deliver a long term efficacy as it is hard for people to follow such diets for a long term. The best thing to do is use a modified diet (calorie restricted diet) (allow yourself some time to love your new diet) and take some weight loss dietary supplements.  Many weight loss supplements are available on the Internet and local health store.  They may work for some individuals if not all including garcinia cambogia, raspberry ketones, green coffee bean extract, green tea extract, and spirulina among others. (David Liu)ReferenceTher Adv Drug Saf. 2013 Aug;4(4):171-181.Safety of antiobesity drugs.Cheung BM, Cheung TT, Samaranayake NR.Division of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Department of Medicine, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.