Appetizing Alli: Gas, Oily Spotting and Possible Liver Damage?

August 25th, 2009. By AbiK

Whoo-boy! There’s a successful date night waiting to happen. Slim down with Alli, fit into that outfit and oh, by the way, can we stop at Rite Aid for some Gas-X?

Back in 2007 when Alli was approved for OTC use for weight loss, anyone and everyone who was looking to lose a few pounds was all over it. What wasn’t to latch onto and love? Pop a pill, and let the pill block about 25% of the fat your body would absorb during a given meal.

Ah, but as with all weight loss plans, there were a few catches. Yes, exercise is advised. And yes, diet modification is not only advised, but necessary. See, that excess fat (the 25% mentioned above) that isn’t absorbed needs to go somewhere—somewhere out of your body. And that can mean gas, “oily spotting” (that’s how Glaxo’s site describes it), or loose or more frequent stools that may be hard to control.

I love this line from Glaxo—while truthful and transparent, which you have to give them credit for, I challenge anyone to read it and not go “ewww!“:

“While excess fat that is excreted is not harmful, patients could be distressed by the experience.”

Oily spotting + distressed by the experience = sign me up for this plan! How ’bout you?

So Glaxo advises that Alli users limit their fat intake to no more than 15g of fat per meal. For perspective, your average Burger King Whopper comes in at 40 grams of fat—and that’s without fries. On the up side, you can have 165 Goldfish crackers for one meal—that’ll get you to a perfect 15g.

Now the FDA has issued an updated safety report on Orlistat—the drug that Alli is, and Xenical. Xenical is the prescription brand coming in at twice the strength of the OTC Alli. Seems there’s been some adverse events—liver damage and 6 reports of liver failure—reported. Granted, the numbers are low—and most appear to be related to Xenical. But the more info there is about Alli, the less, uh, appetizing it appears to be as a weight loss program.

This one’s one to keep an eye on…

Tags: Alli, Glaxo, orlistat-side-effects-orlistate-liver-damage-alli

This was posted on Tuesday, August 25th, 2009 at 4:31 pm and is filed under Emerging Issues . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.