Healthy Skepticism Library item: 1988
Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.
Publication type: news
Children could get 'diet pills'
BBC News 2005 Aug 8
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4130992.stm
Keywords:
diet weight anti-obesity orlistat Xenical obesity children
Notes:
Ralph Faggotter’s Comments: Why is there an epidemic if childhood obesity in the Western World? Soon we will be told that it is not because kids sit in front of the TV all day eating high calorie snacks, but because they have a ‘chemical imbalance’ requiring a chemical treatment. Lets call this ‘Pediatric Triglyceride Hyper-absorption Syndrome’.
Full text:
Children could get ‘diet pills’
Image of an obese child
Obesity is an increasing problem among children
Children as young as 12 could be given anti-obesity drugs to help them shed excess weight.
Pharmaceutical company Roche said it had new trial data showing its drug Xenical (orlistat) works in under 18s.
The European Union recently updated its information for doctors on the drug to include results from the study.
Doctors said it was useful to have more prescribing option, but warned of possible over-use of the drug.
Children should not come to rely on tablets to keep their weight down
Dr Graham Archard, vice-chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners
As orlistat still does not have an official licence for use in adolescents, it will be up to doctors’ discretion to decide who to prescribe it for, said a spokeswoman from Roche.
The prescribing information for orlistat states that it should only be prescribed to those defined as clinically obese.
People given the drug also have to follow a calorie-controlled diet.
Research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in June shows orlistat can help children aged 12-16, who fall into this category, to lose weight.
But Dr Graham Archard, vice-chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners, warned the drug should only be used in extreme cases.
Pill-popping nation
“Children should not come to rely on tablets to keep their weight down,” he said.
He said the focus should be on children taking more exercise and eating healthily and warned that we were becoming a “tablet-driven society”.
Dr David Haslam, chairman of the National Obesity Forum, said orlistat use would be warranted in some cases.
“To have research is reassuring for doctors as they will now feel safe prescribing it for under-18s.
The drug works by blocking the absorption of fat in the gut and should be taken as part of a low-fat diet.
If people taking it eat a fatty diet, they experience a bloated and painful stomach and oily diarrhoea.
Patients given orlistat have been shown to lose an average of 10% in body weight over a year, compared with a 6% loss for those who only follow a low-fat diet.
