No pill can help you lose weight if you eat too much

I CAN’T get too excited about the ‘miracle’ slimming pill that made headlines this week. According to some, lorcaserin is the ‘holy grail’ of weight management and three times more effective than dieting alone.

But at £220 a month — which is what it will cost when it’s available on the NHS — I wonder why taxpayers should be footing the bill for the consequences of people’s gluttony.

We’ve been here before. Almost a decade ago, the drug orlistat was being hailed as the answer to the nation’s obesity crisis. This works by reducing the body’s ability to break down and absorb fat in the diet.

As with lorcaserin, the trial data was promising, but the reality was very different. One of its main side-effects is a very unpleasant gastro-intestinal symptom (I’ll spare you the detail), which can be prevented, or at least reduced, by switching to a very low-fat diet.

Indeed, it’s the reduction in fat intake, rather than the actual drug itself, that is credited with producing weight loss. Orlistat works by changing behaviour, rather than making a patient lose weight.

But many of those prescribed orlistat didn’t want to stop eating fat: they just wanted a pill that would shift the pounds while they continued to stuff their faces. Confronted with the unpleasant sideeffects, they simply stopped taking the pill.

To me, this shows we’re approaching the obesity epidemic in totally the wrong way.

Yes, the importance of diet and exercise and the risks of being overweight are an important health message to get across.

But we also need to tackle the often deeprooted psychological problems that lead to uncontrollable weight gain. The truth is that no pill will ever beat the bulge long-term.