Fat-Blocking Diet Drug Shows Promise

An experimental diet drug, which scientists hope is safer than the ill-fated Redux and fen-phen, helped obese people shed pounds and keep them off in a two-year study, researchers at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center in Manhattan said. Orlistat, trade-named Xenical, has been judged safe and effective enough for the U.S. market by an advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration. Redux and Pondimin--which is generically named fenfluramine and was paired with phentermine in “fen-phen” diets--were recalled in 1997 because of concerns that they caused heart valve damage. The only prescription weight-loss drugs left on the U.S. market regulate brain chemicals affecting appetite. Orlistat blocks absorption of about a third of fat that people eat.