The ever-present battle of bulge has a unique new weapon — the first government approved diet pill that can be purchased without a prescription.

Intended only for people 18 and older, the drug, called Alli, is a low-strength version of the prescription diet drug Xenical.

The Food and Drug Administration announced its approval yesterday but officials are stressing that it is not a miracle drug and needs to be used in combination with a diet and exercise program.

“Using this drug alone is unlikely to be beneficial,” said Dr. Charles Ganley, FDA’s director of non-prescription products.

The new drug will be sold by GlaxoSmithKline PLC and the company said it is expected to be in stores by late June. The final price has not been decided upon yet but, it is expected to be about $1- to $2-a-day.

While some dietary supplements make weight loss claims, Ganley said this is the first nonprescription drug approved by the agency for that purpose.

Ganley said in trials, for every 5 pounds people lost through diet and exercise, those using Alli lost an additional 2 to 3 pounds.

When taken with meals the drug — known generically as orlistat — blocks the absorption of about one-quarter of any fat consumed. That fat — about 150 to 200 calories worth — is passed out of the body in stools, which can be loose as a result of this drugs use. About half of patients in trials experienced gastrointestinal side effects.

Also, FDA said people who have had organ transplants should not take over-the-counter orlistat because of possible drug interactions. In addition, anyone taking blood thinning medicines or being treated for diabetes or thyroid disease should consult a physician before using orlistat, the agency said.

GSK Consumer Healthcare, which will market the pill, said it chose the name Alli (pronounced AL-eye), to signify a partnership with consumers in their weight-loss efforts.

I guess there will be 1,000,000,000 of these sold the first year.  Blocking fat sounds very helpful and a great way to help lose those stuborn pounds.

Here are some of my favourite quotations on health by some famous folks:

The best activities for your health are pumping and humping.
Arnold Schwarzenegger

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
Mark Twain

The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, nor to worry about the future, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.
Buddha

Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.
Redd Foxx

That is one persausive commercial!

Meat and milk from cloned animals will likely not hit the supermarkets for years despite being deemed by the government as safe to eat. But don’t be surprised if “clone-free” labels appear much sooner.

Ben & Jerry’s, for one, wants consumers to know that its ice cream comes from regular cows and not clones. The Ben & Jerry’s label already says its farmers don’t use bovine growth hormone.

“We want to make sure people are confident with what’s in our pints,” company spokesman Rob Michalak said. “We haven’t yet landed on exactly how we want to express that publicly.”

For food that does come from clones, the Food and Drug Administration is unlikely to require labels, officials said.

The FDA gave preliminary approval Thursday to meat and milk from cloned animals or their offspring. Federal scientists found virtually no difference between food from clones and food from conventional livestock.  More marketing power.

This guy should be the poster boy for why “Not to Abuse Steriods”.

This guy sure is lucky to be alive.  I hope they can re-construct his skull.

It should not really be shocking news, that fruit and veggies are good for male fertility.  The more produce a man consumed, the less sluggish his sperm, researchers reported at a meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.

Forty-eight infertile men and 10 fertile men who had fathered children in the last year completed questionnaires about their diets. Results showed that eighty-three percent of the infertile men had a low intake of fruits and veggies, defined as fewer than five servings a day, compared with forty percent of the fertile men.

And overall, men who ate the fewest fruits and veggies had the lowest sperm motility.

“We think that sperm quality is affected by dietary antioxidant intake,” said study author Dr. Vivian Lewis, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Rochester in Rochester, N.Y.

Antioxidants, like those found in fruits and vegetables, may help prevent damage to sperm that causes them to become sluggish and lose the ability to fertilize an egg, she said.

In particular, the antioxidants glutathione and cryptoxanthin, which are abbundant in brightly colored produce such as leafy greens, tomatoes, peppers and oranges, were associated with strong, healthy sperm, Lewis said.

Dr. Rebecca Sokol, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, who was not affiliated with the study, said it’s important for men trying to impregnate their partners to improve their diets. It could potentially help their sperm, and it certainly helps their overall health, she said.

Men also should avoid prolonged soaks in the hot tub and smoking cigarettes and marijuana, all of which may damage sperm, she said.  All things most men do as teenagers, when they don’t want women to get pregnant.  On another note, eating lots of veggies can help you get rid of smelly feet.

Defying the advice of parents and teachers, a new study shows that you’re better off sitting back than sitting up straight..

An Alberta researcher has found that while seated, with feet flat on the ground, leaning back to create a 135-degree angle between the thighs and trunk is much less straining on the spine and will not lead to the potentially chronic back pain associated with sitting in an upright position for extended periods of time.

“Up until now it’s always been, ‘Granny knows best,’ so you sit up straight while eating all your veggies,” said Waseem Amir Bashir, a researcher in radiology and diagnostic imaging at the University of Alberta Hospital in Edmonton and lead author of the study.

Back pain is the most common cause of work-related disability.  “We weren’t made for sitting for such long periods of time.”

Using a new type of a magnetic resonance imaging scanner that allows patients to move freely within it, Dr. Bashir and his colleagues were able to monitor spinal disc movement in 22 healthy subjects for various postures. Traditional MRI machines require patients to lie flat and can mask causes of pain that come from different movements or positions.

They found that sitting at a 90-degree angle puts significant strain on the spinal discs and back muscles because of the force of gravity.

Slouching or hunching forward is even worse, because it compresses the spinal cord and “essentially just pops your discs backwards.”

But having the upper body at 135 degrees to the thighs in a “relaxed” position alleviates nearly all pressure on the lower spinal discs and causes the least damage over extended periods of time.

The researchers came up with this angle because it allows the discs to be perfectly aligned and resembles lying flat on one’s back, which is the ideal position to avoid back pain.  So it is time to ask your boss to order you a lazy-boy recliner if he really cares about your heatlth! And make sure to spend more time on your hobbies, whether it is a mustang restoration or fishing.