New Diet Drug

The FDA has approved a new diet drug. But how effective and, more importantly, how safe is it?

The drug is now called qsymia; formerly qnexa.

Qsymia was approved because it did prove to be effective at helping overweight or obeses study participants lose up to 10% of their body weight. And along with diet and exercise, the manufacturers of this medicine say it could go a long way toward alleviating health problems associated with obesity, like diabetes and high blood pressure.

But this medicine, like all medicines, has side effects. It was initially disapproved back in 2010 because of heart and psychiatric side effects. At that time, the FDA thought those side effects were bad enough to not approve the drug. But now the FDA has approved qsymia for obese or overweight people with a body mass index, BMI, over 27 who also suffer from weight related health conditions like high blood pressure or diabetes. In this case, the FDA has most likely felt the benefits of losing weight using qsymia outweighed the potential dangerous side effects.

The key here is to use the medicine in conjunction with diet and exercise. It's not a magic pill by any stretch of the imagination. For many using this pill, they might need to be on it long term since coming off of it could mean putting the weight right back on. And it's not expected to be covered by most insurance companies, at least not yet.