It is estimated that Americans spend over $17 million a year on a class of products called diet supplements. With record numbers of overweight citizens in the United States, coupled with a preternatural cultural obsession with lean bodies, it’s no wonder. Unfortunately, the hope offered by diet aids that contain ephedrine is a false one.
In the same way that euphoric drugs offer a better state of mind only until the drug wears off, the weight loss and increased energy achieved through ephedrine is only temporary. It cannot be sustained after cessation of the drug without the same lifestyle changes that would have facilitated that weight loss in the first place. But like any drug that makes life easier, ephedrine becomes a crutch, a “”lifestyle drug.”” The Web site for Herbalife, a provider of one ephedrine product, has the slogan “”Herbalife … a way of life”” beneath a picture of a beautiful, smiling family. Unfortunately, this lifestyle comes with a wide range of serious side effects, and the very real possibility of drug-related fatality.
Ephedrine speeds up and ultimately overworks the heart and a host of other bodily processes, much like methamphetamine without the full manic psychological kick. This has been experienced by many users as an uncomfortable thumping in the chest and pulsing throughout parts of the body. Yes, this is legal, and users shouldn’t worry about law enforcement. Even if they start feeling an overwhelming, urgent energy or scattered thinking and paranoia, they should not report themselves to the nearest Drug Enforcement Agency agent. I repeat, despite the odd similarity between the state they are feeling and the symptoms of very illegal amphetamine intoxication, users are in no danger of prosecution for taking these diet pills.
However, a user might be somewhat bothered by the host of unpleasant side effects that can accompany ephedrine use, such as headaches, dizziness, tremors, increased nervousness and chest pain. Users might also be quite distressed to learn that bodily changes that begin simply with alterations in heart rate and blood pressure can lead — sometimes quickly — to myocardial infarction, hypertension, strokes or seizures. Different sources give different numbers, but the Food and Drug Administration has filed 81 reported deaths associated with ephedrine alkaloids between 1993 and 2001. Given the recent rise of these products and the fact that their use is not monitored by the medical profession in an organized fashion, severe underreporting seems likely, and deaths will continue to mount.
After going off ephedrine, users often gain more weight back than they lost and have a higher body fat index because the body adapts to store fat more efficiently and devotes less energy to tasks like muscle-building. Withdrawal from ephedrine also often includes a spike in appetite, similar to the food cravings that a smoker can get while kicking the habit, because the brain and body’s natural hunger mechanisms have been recalibrated.
The subjective feeling of hunger is mediated by a variety of receptors and hormones, such as insulin and leptin. When a stimulant like ephedra is introduced to the body, these systems slowly become more sensitive to counteract the appetite-suppressing effects of the drug, and re-establish their ability to communicate nutrient needs to the individual. Ironically, this personification of the human body might seem a little heavy-handed, since cells don’t have desires in the same way that individuals do. But evolution has offered strong incentives, through the famines and seasonal scarcities that plagued humans through most of their history, to develop metabolic and hunger mechanisms that are responsive to a variety of circumstances. The idea that such a complex system could be bypassed by a pill is ludicrous.
Unfortunately, in a world of taco shops and candy aisles, many of these mechanisms do more harm than good. Like quick-fix diets, diet pills can set off a chain reaction in the body that will leave the user with a more persistent weight problem in the long term than before the use started.
According to http://www.ephedrine-news.com, Americans consume three billion doses of ephedrine each year in the form of not just pills, but also sports drinks and food supplements. Dozens of products contain ephedrine, including Xenadrine, Ripped Fuel and Hydroxycut.
By far the most popular is Metabolife, whose annual reported revenues now total $1 billion and whose flagship product is the leading ephedrine-based diet pill. Customers might not even know they are ingesting an ephedrine product because the ingredients do not list the active drug, but the herbal source: ma huang. The Metabolife Web site gushes not about its stimulant drugs, but its “”thermogenic herbs.”” The public is fooled into believing that ephedrine is safe or even healthy because it is contained in a plant. By contrast, the safety of herbal ephedrine products may be inferior to synthetic isolations because similar measurements of different herbal preparations can have wildly different yields of ephedrine, and the manufacturer is not required to report this information. Since ma huang is a naturally occurring herb, it is not regulated by the FDA with regard to its risks as a drug, unless it can be proven in court that it is a health risk.
On Aug. 15, the U.S. Department of Justice began its criminal investigation of Metabolife, the leading manufacturer of weight-management products that derive their efficacy from herbal ephedrine sources. The suit’s focus is on a collection of 13,000 complaints that Metabolife has received from its customers on a hotline it established to give “”weight loss advice.”” The FDA has been attempting to obtain these records for years, even filing a criminal suit when Metabolife claimed that no such complaints existed. When the company finally handed over the calls, they claimed that they did not turn them over earlier because “”three experts reviewed this information and determined that the information does not demonstrate that Metabolife 356 is unsafe or poses any health problems when used as directed.”” In other words, the company felt that three reputed experts in its own employ had the authority to determine if a drug is safe for the entire U.S. population to consume.
If this sounds a little unorthodox, it is because the FDA, a large government bureaucracy with hundreds of scientists and statisticians, usually puts drugs through a rigorous battery of tests that can take years to complete before it can be determined whether a drug is safe enough to be available over the counter, regulated by a doctor’s prescription or banned from sale in the U.S. entirely.
If the diet pill companies’ blatant lies, retractions, concealment of evidence and protection behind the plant/drug distinction seems somehow familiar, it is because the tobacco companies went through the same process in America’s courts. Like Big Tobacco, the Big Diet industry is making billions on a dangerous product with elusive benefits.
