So many people (it isn’t just women) will go to any lengths to be thin. People want a quick fix, something easy, and something that will not require hours of exercise or changing one’s diet. What many don’t realize is that it is never that easy. One pill will not magically help you drop weight and keep it off. You may see quick weight loss results with a diet pill, but you will be severely jeopardizing your health. Is the risk worth it? Read on for details about this frightening trend in weight loss supplements.

The Truth Behind the Flashy Ads

If you pick up a bottle of a diet pill like Xenadrine, you could be wowed by all of their claims. Clinical studies? Safe? Improving metabolism? Customer testimonials? When things like this jump at you from off of the shelf, it is easy to be fooled. But like with any advertising claim, don’t be taken in by what you see on the surface. Steve Bechler, Major League baseball pitcher, took Xenadrine before a game, after he realized that he needed to drop some weight to have a healthy start to the season. One heart attack later and he passed away. As shocking as it is, this healthy 23 year old man didn’t know the dangers of diet supplements and paid the highest price. Look again at any packaging and marketing for a diet pill. They may magically claim to seed up metabolism and help the pounds melt away, but what significant research backs up these claims? Is there a reputable organization, like the Food and Drug Administration, asserting that the claims are true?

Take a supplement like Ephedra. It can be found everywhere, from weight loss aids to energy boosters. Metabolife, one of the best selling over-the-counter weight loss aids in the country, contains Ephedra. The supplement contains both Ephedra AND caffeine, which the manufacturers have claimed for years have no side effects when combined. Mind you, this is the company trying to market their product to millions of weight-conscious Americans, so you would think they would want to have their facts as straight as possible. However, when staring in the face of criminal charges and a federal investigation, the president of Metabolife, David Brown finally coped to the fact that “between 1997 and September 2001 his company received roughly 13,000 reports of ‘certain health-related issues‘ linked to the supplement, among them heart attacks, strokes, seizures and death. A subsequent analysis added high blood pressure, palpitations, psychosis and other serious problems.” The FDA even estimates that Ephrdra accounts for 64% of all related side effects from herbal supplements, and that for every one of these recorded incidents, 100 go unreported.

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Your kindly neighborhood pediatrician may be trying to get you to vaccinate your child this year against the flu virus. Maybe you’re already skeptical about whether the shot does any good for those receiving it, and you may be recoiling in horror as your baby’s doctor tries to inject your infant at just six months old. Such is the disturbing trend popping up by doctors who are a part of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Read on to learn about this organization’s drive to vaccinate babies and children, whether the shot has been proven helpful or not.

Flu Shots: Necessary Evil?

No parent likes to see their baby get shots-the screaming, the crying, the tears of despair over getting stuck with that big, mean needle. Studies have shown in recent years that the flu shot might not be necessary for keeping people healthy, unless the people in question are the elderly and infirmed or the very young and sickly. If you have a child, you may be hearing the AAP’s outcry that children from 6 months of age all the way up to 18 year olds should be required to have an annual flu shot. Well, for helpless babies at 6 months of age, this may have some validity. However, for children and especially teenagers, studies have shown that the flu vaccine only works in about 1% of the studied population. For parents who don’t want any unnecessary drugs injected into their little one’s bodies, this new insistence may raise more than a few hackles.

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