With everything that people deal with to lose weight, diets that do not work, diet pills that do not do what they are supposed to, overpriced exercise equipment, just to name a few. It is no wonder that now the latest idea is to combine prescription medications in the hopes that using the combination will have the miraculous results that they so desperately want and in some cases need.

Combo-pilling is the newest fad or better yet the newest to come under scrutiny and therefore it is just more publicly known in recent months, comb-pilling for weight loss has been around since the eighties. The biggest reason that using a combination of pills is becoming popular is the fact that as of right now there are no long term prescription diet pills that have been approved by the FDA other than orlistat. The truly disturbing part is that doctors are prescribing these combinations of medications even though some of the combinations have been rejected or have yet to be approved by the FDA.

Most of the combinations that are used to enhance weight loss involve an amphetamine and an antidepressant. Phentermine and Prozac are a popular combination that have been around for some time, and even though it has been around no one wants to truly combine the two and try to get FDA approval to market it as a weight loss pill. Right there should raise some red flags if the greedy pharmaceutical companies do not want to be involved in combining medications and selling them something must be wrong with the combination. In fairness there is one weight loss combination pill that is in front of the FDA now Contrave—which couples naltrexone, used to treat alcohol and drug addiction, with the antidepressant bupropion (Wellbutrin, Zyban) it has been given the go ahead to move forward by an FDA advisory committee, but as of yet has not been approved.

Using two separate drugs to lose weight can be very effective there are combinations in front of the FDA now awaiting approval. When dealing with weight loss and the people who go through it one should err on the side of caution and let the FDA do its job and demand some research be done so that the public is aware of the side effects and dangers of the medications before we take them. Keep in mind that drug companies are in business to make money and that they would say anything to keep people on their medications.