Keeping both the mind and the body healthy

By: John Scott
Submitted: 2008-05-15 10:32:51
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The pharmaceutical company, Sanofi-Aventis, has always promoted acomplia as achieving the best results when combined with a low-calorie diet and exercise. There is a simple explanation for this. People who are sufficiently motivated will lose weight if they reduce their calorie intake below their normal daily requirement and increase their metabolic rate through exercise. This forces the body to burn fat as stored energy to fill the gap. So why take acomplia? In the clinical trials, many of the people on placebo also lost weight.

There is another simple explanation. It is an application of the placebo effect. When people believe strongly enough that a medication is effective, it will produce the relevant healing effect. Even though a tablet is actually chemically inert, it can heal in the right context. More importantly, the placebo effect amplifies the therapeutic effect of all real medications. So back to the question of why anyone should use acomplia.

The answer depends on the precise effect that acomplia has. This medication is specifically designed to help people feel less hungry. Hunger is the psychological trigger to eating. Thus, if people feel only slightly hungry, they will naturally eat less leading to two opposing statements:

Acomplia should therefore not be seen as a weight reduction medication.

Acomplia should therefore be seen as a weight reduction medication.

Both statements are true consequences. Acomplia is not in itself a “fat buster”. The active chemical ingredients do not circulate through the body via the blood stream metaphorically killing fat cells whenever they find them. It is only a psychological prop to help people maintain their motivation to diet. The body will lose weight naturally if people consume more energy than they take in. If people feel less hungry, this is easier to achieve. Now let us go back to the idea of a placebo making a drug more effective. If everyone believes that acomplia is a fat buster, then it is more likely that people will lose more weight using it.

Now to add one further reason for following the formula of acomplia + diet + exercise. It is suggested that acomplia is associated with mood changes. In this respect, the research published in the April edition of Br. J. Sports Med. makes interesting reading. It has always been intuitively obvious that regular physical activity helps to improve mood, although no-one has ever been able to suggest exactly how much of whatever activity achieves this effect. All researchers have said is that if the physical activity is affecting the body positively, the body releases dopamine to reinforce the sense of pleasure or enjoyment and so encourage more of the activity.

The study focussed on some 20,000 adult Scottish participants using the General Health Questionnaire. If there is regular activity, there is a clear reduction in the levels of psychological distress after adjusting for factors of age, gender, BMI, smoking, marital status, social economic group, and the presence of any chronic illness. Less frequent activity has an effect, but it is less significant. The strongest effect was obtained through engaging in a sport, but there were also good results from gardening and other hobby activities involving physical exercise. Even twenty minutes per week had a good effect on mood.

Thus, whether by accident or design, the linkage between acomplia and physical exercise is genuinely valuable. If acomplia does potentially have an adverse effect on mood, this may to some extent be relieved if you are also exercising regularly. This article is not, of course, suggesting that physical activity will be a guaranteed cure for any looming depression. But whether you exercise to lose weight or to improve your mood, acomplia with exercise is obviously going to be better than acomplia without exercise.

Article source: Expert Articles