Diet Pills: The Past

The use of diet aids began around 1900. Since then, many drugs have been used to assist with weight loss. Some of these drugs, while very effective, produced serious side effects. These side effects were often not recognized until many people became sick, or even died.

The U.S. government has taken certain steps in an attempt to ensure the safety and effectiveness of drugs sold in the United States. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began screening drugs for safety in 1938 and effectiveness in 1962. The FDA requires that manufacturers perform studies to prove that their drugs are safe and effective before they may be sold legally in the United States.

In 1951, the U.S. government began requiring people to obtain a doctor’s prescription before they could take certain medications. This ensured that a physician or other health-care provider was able
to examine the patient and determine that the benefits of the drug outweighed any risk of side effects for that individual.

Prior to these government efforts, unsafe drugs were available to the American public. The FDA’s laws have greatly improved the safety of available drugs. However, some drugs approved by the FDA are used inappropriately by the public. Drugs that have been judged as safe can become unsafe when used in the wrong way for example, by being used at too high a dose, for too long a period of time, or in combination with another drug that causes a dangerous interaction. A major problem with diet pills is that people tend to take them for longer than is recommended by the FDA. This is due in part to the fact that people often regain weight when they stop taking diet pills.

The term dietary supplement has a specific meaning in the United States that was established by the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA). It refers to a substance that supplements the diet and whose label clearly states that it is a dietary supplement. It is different from a drug, which is defined as a substance that is intended to “diagnose, cure, mitigate, treat, or prevent diseases” and which must undergo extensive testing and be approved by the FDA before being sold. Dietary supplements generally contain vitamins, minerals, herbs, other plant-derived substances, amino acids (the individual building blocks of protein), and extracts of these substances.

Natural and herbal diet pills available in the United States today are considered dietary supplements and are not subject to FDA review prior to being sold. Although these agents may have drug-like activity in the body, they do not need to be proven safe or effective like conventional drugs do. Unlike
conventional drugs, natural and herbal diet pills can only be withdrawn from the market when they are proven to be dangerous. As a result, many herbal products reach the market without any scientific evidence that they are safe or effective.

It is only possible to obtain these drugs by prescription for uses other than weight loss. This is not to say that these drugs cannot still be obtained by a person who is willing to ignore the risks. One way a person might obtain these drugs is on usually over the Internet.