“Food” is so doped up with chemicals and white refined sugar it’s amazing that any of us are alive. I’m just not sure if the “food” manufacturers intentionally created addicts (like the cigarette companies did with their additives) or if they just wanted to produce their “food” more cheaply and addiction and other problems were unintentional effects. I think one thing is clear: they just don’t care. They don’t care if their “food” is good for us. They don’t care if our teeth rot, if we get diabetes or other diseases, if we feel like crap, if we can’t poop or we can’t stop pooping … they just want us to eat more more more because they get rich.

I’m mad.

Our capitalist society is not good for us. Those with something to sell always stay 10 steps ahead. They pollute our environment, they pollute our bodies, they pollute our minds in addition to ripping us off monetarily. I was wondering just this morning why companies are allowed to package their products so wastefully. We’re still dealing with pollution created in the first half of the 20th century. Ever take a trip through the EPA’s Superfund web site ? The descriptions of the sites, especially those on the NPL (National Priorities List) will blow your mind.

http://www.epa.gov/superfund/sites/query/queryhtm/nplfin.htm

Check out this one in Massachusetts, it’s one of the worst I’ve seen. It still makes me teary-eyed.

http://yosemite.epa.gov/r1/npl_pad.nsf/f52fa5c31fa8f5c885256adc0050b631/1E8F7D6FFCD9B61B85256A0F00067136?OpenDocument

http://neurologicalcorrelates.com/wordpress/2009/03/12/potato-chips-cause-your-body-to-go-into-a-proinflammatory-state-but-the-usda-potato-researchers-dont-care/

Two advantages over the other “poly-pill” combo psych med pills.

First, is independently titrating the phenteramine. If you can do that, then if you have insomnia, etc. it can be dealt with without having to go off drug completely.

Second, and this is more important, there is one, very specific activity — cutting appetite via 5HT2c.
This is for otherwise healthy obese people, or perhaps those with diabetes. Regardless, why would you ever throw a bunch of psych meds on healthy people?

Actually, naltrexone (in another product) is interesting because it can be used to treat kleptomania. So you get a drug that you don’t want to steal. This may be good to treat binge eaters, or others who have impulsivity issues.

But, if your appetite center is just dialed up too high, then you need an agonist for that, and that’s all. (There are also advantages in being an agonist, rather than an antagonist, but that’s another time.. .).

We know the fen-phen numbers, something like 18MM scripts written 1996-1997, and my assumption was that lorcaserin was going to be like dexfenfluramine except without the valvulopathy. Not great as a single agent, but works better with phenteramine. So off-label prescribing, along with post-market monitoring, and then get the money to do the combo trial.

Who knows. The Arena results were confirmatory, no surprises (yay). What did people think?

All the other marketing stuff, or exec. suite street cred is just fluff. It’s the science, and I just don’t see why these data are disappointing. What am I missing?

I’m certain in 10-20 years we’ll look back on SSRIs for weight loss just as we now look at speed from the 1970′s. Just plain wrong with serious adverse effects.

I still say we should attack the problem at the real source. Let’s require that food have some minimum level of nutrition, and all that doesn’t is classified as junk and only sold to adults at the licensed junk food stores, and only between certain hours, etc. Just like other controlled substances. Junk masquerading as food is THE #1 problem. Less junk, less obesity.

But as I posted elsewhere, it doesn’t really matter. If the drug goes to market it will be an instant hit, because most people who want to lose weight without doing the hard work don’t pay attention to efficacy.