Fat & Drugs

"No weight reducing compound in any form should be used unless the patient is under strict observation by a thoroughly qualified physician." So declared Dr. Edward L. Bortz of Philadelphia to the American College of Physicians, meeting in Chicago last week. To such talk, patent medicine manufacturers and many a layman reply: "Humph, doctors trying to make more business for themselves!"

Dr. Bortz was talking specifically about the latest weight reducing drug, Dinitrophenol, which burns up fat by speeding the body's metabolic processes. In so doing it may also produce nausea, itching, rash. Taken in overlarge doses, it brings violent illness and death. A full study of the drug has not been completed, but it has been established that some people are especially sensitive to it. Last week Dr. Bortz advised doctors to test their patients for two weeks with extremely light doses.

Drug companies have flooded the land with Dinitrophenol (usually under its right name, but one company calls it "Formula 761") and many a druggist sells it without prescription. Last fortnight two cases of sudden death from overdoses of the drug were reported to the Journal of the American Medical Association, one of a young woman in Los Angeles who followed directions on the box and died violently within a week.

Dinitrophenol has temporarily cast a shade over other reducing drugs and compounds. Hundreds of them are on the market, with widely varying formulas, but the facts about them are simple. Prime fact is that all are either harmful, worthless or both. Most are simply laxatives, for it is possible to reduce weight by hurrying food through the system before it can be properly digested. Some compounds contain thyroid extract which, by speeding metabolism, does reduce weight but with much possible harm.

For years the American Medical Association's Bureau of Investigation has analyzed and exposed so-called obesity cures. The following are its verdicts on some better-known preparations:

Marmola: "A quack obesity cure of the thyroid type."

Jad Salts: "If one analyzes the present Jad Salts advertising it declares in effect that it is quite unnecessary to buy Jad Salts in order to reduce--which, of course, is a fact--but that any reduction must be brought about by cutting down on the food intake. While this is the technical thesis of Jad Salts advertising the obvious intent seems to be to make the public believe that Jad Salts is an obesity cure."

Lesser Slim Figure Bath: "Every physician knows . . . that this absurd mixture of cornstarch, borax, baking soda, etc. can have not the slightest effect in the reduction of weight."

Citrophan: "There is no scientific evidence . . . that tetraiodophenolphthalein [its active constituent] will reduce weight except, possibly, by disturbing the digestive functions."

Vannay: "Whatever reduction in weight may follow the use of Vannay is due to one or both of two factors: First, the laxative action and, second, the requirement -- common to practically every obesity-cure nostrum on the market--that the victim, in taking it, should diet."

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