Tea Time: Diet Pills, Effective or Not?

Are you someone who has ever considered the easy way out? Maybe even thought of the easy way out for weight loss? Come on, admit it – who WOULDN’T want to eat that juicy fudge brownie (s) and not have to hide the scale after?

Well, I hate to burst bubbles, but when it comes to health, I find myself doing that often. Today’s bubble is: Diet pills*.

I’m going to lay this to rest once and for all, because I get this question often. Whether “herbal” or chemically-made, these pills are often ineffective and, at times, dangerous. We read a lot of labels that claim “herbal” or “organic” or “natural” and automatically think they can’t be harmful – which is exactly what their marketing is playing at.

What you don’t know is that there are many naturally found herbs that ARE, in fact, unsafe, and it doesn’t end there. Some naturally found items are actually used in prescription medicine – So it’s very possible that your herbal diet pill, is someone else’s medicine.

This is particularly scary because the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not regulate over-the-counter drugs, including herbal supplements. Meaning, there are no tests done to check the amount of active ingredients in these products, nor the extent of their effect.

In fact, just recently, I read about a medical student who obtained a diet pill online, which contained a deadly ingredient known as dinitrophenol (DNP) that ended her life. This ingredient is used by bodybuilders to help them slim down, according to the same article.

So please, I can’t emphasize this enough – there is no magic potion to weight loss and dieting, it is only exercise and healthy eating.

*For a list of diet pills and their effect, or lack of it, check TeaCalls.com