While Alli, indicated for the treatment of overweight, should be available without a prescription from May, the French Agency for the Safety of Health Products (Afssaps) organized a press conference last Friday to warn patients against diet pills.
The management of obesity must be carried out under the supervision of a doctor, and over the long term, to obtain lasting effects, recalled Philippe Lechat, director of the evaluation of drugs and biological products and Anne Castot. , head of the evaluation, risk monitoring and drug information service.
The drugs would only be useful for patients who have not responded satisfactorily to a low calorie diet, and therefore have difficulty achieving or maintaining weight loss. However, the risk is that we get this drug based on orlistat under the pretext of wanting to lose a few pounds before the summer. Hence the insistence of Afssaps: “Alli is indicated in association with a moderately hypocaloric and low fat diet, in the treatment of overweight (Body Mass Index (BMI) = 28 kg / m²) in adults “.
The experts also recalled the undesirable side effects of Alli (gas, incontinence of stool) and its contraindications.
A regional pharmacovigilance center responsible for national monitoring of the product will be appointed to monitor the occurrence of adverse effects.
The Afssaps also alerts consumers to the sale of medicines on the internet or outside the pharmacy circuit. The product purchased may prove to be “dangerous or even fatal” for patients with contraindications to certain substances found in these “miracle pills”, Afssaps recalled.
