Medicines and products for weight loss

Weight-loss products divide sharply into prescription medicines that work (with conditions), surgery for severe obesity, and an over-the-counter market that is mostly useless and sometimes dangerous.

Prescription anti-obesity medicines (doctor-only):

• Orlistat: blocks fat absorption in the gut; modest effect, oily-stool side effects, requires a low-fat diet.
• GLP-1 medicines (semaglutide, liraglutide, tirzepatide): genuinely effective injections producing substantial loss - but prescription-only, expensive, with side effects (nausea, rare pancreatitis), and weight largely returns when stopped. They are medical treatment for obesity, ideally with lifestyle change alongside, not cosmetic shortcuts. Who qualifies, for how long, and with what monitoring is a doctor's decision.
• Older appetite suppressants: limited roles under supervision.

Bariatric (metabolic) surgery. For severe obesity (BMI over 40, or over 35-37.5 with diseases like diabetes), procedures like sleeve gastrectomy and bypass produce the largest, most durable loss and can put diabetes into remission. It is real surgery with real criteria and lifelong nutritional follow-up - a legitimate medical option, not a last resort to be ashamed of.

The over-the-counter danger zone:

• 'Fat burner' supplements: stimulant mixtures with unproven benefit and documented harms - palpitations, blood pressure spikes, liver injury.