Experts recommend consulting your doctor before taking over-the-counter diet aids or undergoing any diet and exercise plan. Howard Eisenson, executive director of the Duke Diet and Fitness Center, said he does not recommend using over-the-counter diet products at all.
"I can tell you that I, and I believe most weight control experts, do not favor the non-prescription products out there," he said. "They don't meet the twin tests of both effectiveness and safety."
The same goes for the products being peddled on infomercials, promising massive weight loss with no effort, experts say. If you're sitting close enough to the TV to read the fine print, you'll see that most of them are not approved by the FDA. That means there's likely no independent evidence that the product is effective or even safe, experts say.
"In a nutshell, I think people are throwing their money away," said Amy Virus, a registered dietitian with the Center for Obesity Research and Education at Temple University. "There's no 'lose 20 pounds' pill. Any time you see one of those crazy claims, definitely question it."
When I made an inquiry about non-prescription diet aids to the Consumer Healthcare Products Association, which represents manufacturers of over-the-counter drugs, a spokeswoman referred me to the makers of the products.
Chris Pugh, a spokesman for PatentHealth, the maker of one appetite suppressant—Apatrim—said the company stands behind the product's claims. The Web site says that Apatrim is "willpower in a bottle" and that all of the people who took the pill in trials lost weight or inches without diet or exercise.
There's also an asterisk directing you to the disclosure that those statements have not been evaluated by the FDA.
"The claims we make on the Web site are backed by clinical studies," Pugh said. "We strongly believe in the product."
For now, experts say there's only one FDA-approved over-the-counter diet pill: Alli. Alli blocks the body's absorption of fat and has been proven to help people lose weight, experts say. The makers of Alli say it can boost weight loss by 50 percent if used in conjunction with a low-fat diet. And therein lies the rub.
Alli, like many other over-the-counter diet aids, requires that you eat right and exercise. If you make the mistake of thinking that the pills give you license to pig out on cheeseburgers and pizza, they won't work. And with Alli, you'll be treated to unpleasant side effects such as uncontrollable bowels if you eat too much fat.
Even with prescription diet pills, experts say, diet and exercise are a must. Dr. Donald Hensrud, a Mayo Clinic diet guru, said consumers often have unrealistic expectations for both over-the-counter and prescription diet aids. Hensrud said that, in both cases, the results are often modest and likely attributable to changes in eating habits and physical activity.
"It gets down to the basics. The basics are challenging to apply, however," Hensrud said. "When people are faced with a difficult challenge, it's human nature, they want to find that magic bullet."
So, there's no getting around that whole diet and exercise thing. But you knew that. And if you had the discipline to do that, you wouldn't need the pill in the first place. I mean, didn't you make this same resolution last year?