by Lisa Rau

Created on: June 04, 2008

"Oh, you're not obese.' You're just sick! Here, take this pill."

Rather than getting grilled by your doctor over eating habits, exercise schedules and caloric intake, Big Pharma has found a way to rake in billions of dollars while at the same time, easing the guilt trip of so many who are told to "shape up."

And thus, "Metabolic Syndrome" was born.

-Metabolic what?-

Metabolic Syndrome recently burst onto the medical industry scene' as a newly treatable "disease," identifiable by two or more of the following symptoms: obesity and high- cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar or triglycerides.

That covers just about every patriotic fast food aficionado in the country.

While these five factors have long been known to be related to myriad health problems (e.g. heart disease and Type II Diabetes), only in the past few years has the medical industry labeled this clustering of symptoms a disease. And with this new label comes new treatment: prescription drugs, the snazzy new leap toward a "cure."

The National Institute of Health (www.nih.gov) estimates on their Web site that 75 million Americans now have Metabolic Syndrome, whether they know it or not.

However, recurring publications by the American Diabetes Association, or ADA (http://care.diabetesjournals.org), challenge the validity of Metabolic Syndrome as a tool for prescribing weight loss supplements and related drugs. The definition of Metabolic Syndrome itself isn't even agreed upon by varying medical sources, but most of them are good enough to warrant any of the countless pills currently on the market.

The question of whether weight loss supplements are effective or not goes much further than what the scale says. The relationship between the medical industry, pharmaceutical companies and drug marketing determines the value we place on both weight loss drugs how the average person is supposed to look.

-So, do they even work?-

Drugs are just that: drugs. Specifically designed to treat symptoms, drugs for weight loss cannot address underlying health issues, posing dangerous risks to overall health.

The FDA issues regular safety alerts about unexpected side effects, including depression- and anxiety-related effects for weight-loss prescriptions such as Rimonabant and Glucophage, and even severe vision-impairment for Avandia. Worldwide, over 5.3 million patients now take Avandia for their "Metabolic Syndrome," despite research that found only a 7.9-pound difference between the drug's effects and a placebo's (http://www.diabetes.org).

Nevertheless,

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