Just to read "shitting myself in public" on a high-minded website like Salon.

Worth the Mastercard purchase. Priceless!

Pretty depressing. But where there is money to be made, there will always be suckers.

You post at Broadsheet, but you worry about shitting yourself in public?

Too late!

If you take this drug, then you either eat less fats or you poop yourself in public. If that's not a good incentive for adopting a better diet, what is?

Not that the side effects would be fun, but I can only imagine taking something like this on an irregular basis to begin with. Like, say, you've got a family function and you know that Aunt Betsy cooks everything with a pound of butter, or you go out to a fast food restaurant once a month, I can see taking one then to reduce the impact of an *occasional* slip off the diet wagon. On a regular basis, though, it seems like it'd be easier and cheaper just to eat less fat, especially since in my opinion the "fat free" foods are usually pretty good compared to the "sugar free" ones. (Sometimes, arguably, better, thinking particularly of Cool Whip Free which tastes to me more like real whipped cream than the regular variety.)

Now, when they come out with a drug that prevents the absorption of sugar... I'd probably be there no matter what side effects it involves.

if you take alli with a pound of butter, you're gonna have a real bad night...

BTW--I work at the headquarters of a regional retailer & just looked at the sales--the stuff is screaming off the shelf.

Just get your pancreas removed, ThoughtsOfSusan, if you want to avoid "absorbing" sugar. That'll give you all the benefits of Type 1 Diabetes, including a complete inability to turn sugar into energy.

Cool, huh?

...and let me tell you, it's exactly as gross as you would imagine. I tried Xenical many years ago when I was in college, under the mistaken belief that it would allow me to eat all the delicious, fatty things I wanted and still lose weight. That illusion lasted for about 24 hours before the first side effects hit -- side effects that I had initially shrugged off and assumed wouldn't apply to me. It was only sheer chance that kept me from massive public embarrassment. I pretty quickly came to the same conclusion as the author of this article -- if I have to eat a low-fat diet anyway to be on this drug, then what's the point?

My Xenical adventures came to an end a few days later. Not only was the entire experience revolting, but it was profoundly disturbing to watch my body go through the entirely unnatural process of expelling pure fat. It seems clear to me that this drug is meant for the thin-person-looking-to-get-thinner type; who else would pay $60/month in order to rid themselves of those 36 calories each day?

"I can see taking one then to reduce the impact of an *occasional* slip off the diet wagon"

I think a quick trip to the loo to vomit after an occasional pigfest is probably a lot easier to do. Better than needing to wear Depends to Thanksgiving dinner.

Like, say, you've got a family function and you know that Aunt Betsy cooks everything with a pound of butter, or you go out to a fast food restaurant once a month, I can see taking one then to reduce the impact of an *occasional* slip off the diet wagon.

You can't eat that kind of food *at all*, because the "pound of butter" that the food is cooked with will come shooting out the tail end of your digestive system uncontrollably, unannounced, and quite possibly while you are in public. That's what it means when they say the drug causes your body not to absorb fat.

The real function of the drug is enforced control over your eating habits via extreme negative reinforcement. What people won't do with willpower, they sure as hell will do with the threat of public fecal incontinence hanging over them.

I guess you could think of it like Antabuse for people who crave fat....

Basically, though, this is utterly disgusting. I wonder how it would react with Olestra?

Another reason to stay off public transportation. And out of swimming pools.

Ya mean for that price someone can fear expelling fecal matter in public *and* lose weight??!

Wow, and I've been paying about 5 or six times that for ileostomy equipment to get the same thing ...

I've been ripped off, big time.

I too tried the prescription version of this drug. Other people have already noted the paradox of having to eat a low-fat diet on a drug that only works on fat. It's true enough. However, I'd like to take issue with the notion that one dose will cause you to lose all control of your bowels. That wasn't the case. I think bowel movements come on a little quicker, but I never felt as though I lost control. It was more like having to go really bad all of a sudden. The real downside was when you had to pass gas. You never knew if your underpants were going to be dotted (or worse) with poo-smelling oil. We coined a term for it - shvarting. I never had that much of a problem, but I know that my husband did once have to throw away his boxers at work.

And i didn't lose any weight!

This drug seems to produce the same results as having your gallbladder removed, if my experience is any guide.

A person must not be able to take this for very long, I'm guessing. There's actually stuff in fat that you need to function.

Those side effects sound like what I suffered for years before a doctor finally prescribed sythentic pancreatic enzymes. Ugh...I would NOT wish those side effects on anyone. You might look skinnier, but you're going to be all gassy and disgusting, so what's the point?

Wait three months and then see if this stuff is still flying off the shelf. If it is, I bet it will be flying at a much slower rate, and in 6 months, it'll just be a trickle - the people that still haven't heard from their friends and family about the amusing side effects. The only reason it IS flying off the shelves right now is because they're not using the phrase "anal leakage" like Olestra did!

One note about the low fat diet, though. The article mentioned limiting each meal to 15 grams of fat, and said that would only save 36 calories per meal. But, that would be 108 calories per day. At that rate you would lose an extra 10 pounds in a year - beyond what you're already losing by switching to a lower-fat diet. And/or, it helps you get to your goal weight that much quicker. So, compared with the 50 pounds per year saved by cutting out 55 grams of fat per day, plus the extra 10 pounds from the pill, that's an additional 20% of pounds lost. For only a minor risk of anal leakage.