Pill Popping

Fancy being thinner, browner or more rested? As Toni Jordan reports, the new generation of lifestyle pills might hold the answer.

So, how’s your life going? If you’re anything like me you could probably stand to lose a few pounds, get more sleep and, oh, I don’t know…look a bit more like Jennifer Hawkins. Well, thanks to the wonders of modern medicine, there’s no need to diet, exercise or in fact do anything healthy at all. These days, you can fix all your minor lifestyle problems by simply popping a pill.

Sleepy heads
Do you need more sleep? We all know we should be getting at least seven hours kip a night, but often it’s not that easy. Work and family pressures, stress, travel or just a hectic lifestyle can mean that many people get by with as few as four hours of sleep a night. This might be fine for a few rare individuals, but the majority of us need much more. Enter the pharmaceutical industry, and their new wonderdrug, Modafinil.

Modafinil was first developed to treat narcolepsy, a dangerous and debilitating condition where people are unable to control where and when they fall asleep. Since then, it’s become apparent that there are a whole lot of people who, if given the choice, would prefer to spend less time sleeping.

The trouble is that, increasingly in the US, Modafinil is being prescribed as a ‘lifestyle’ drug. It’s simple—instead of adjusting your unhealthy lifestyle so that you actually get more sleep, you simply head off to the doctor for a prescription. The FDA (the regulatory body for drugs in the USA) is so unimpressed by this epidemic of alleged narcolepsy that back in January 2002 it sent a warning letter to the manufacturer of Modafinil, Cephalon Inc, to object to their false and misleading promotion materials for the drug. Cephalon had marketed the drug to doctors, suggesting they prescribe it for patients who simply complain of fatigue or tiredness.

Sleep is vital to our health; it’s not healthy to take a pill so we can ‘get away’ with less. Without sleep, our immune system in particular begins to get run down. Also, no-one actually knows exactly how Modafinil works, although it’s suspected to have something to do with dopamine reuptake in the brain. So…let’s see—drug with powerful but unknown brain action versus a few early nights. I know what I’ll be choosing.

So, exactly what happens to the fat?
Unless you have been stranded on a desert island with the cast of Lost for the last few years, you can’t have missed the terrific advertising in the windows of your local chemists. Usually this consists of a pretty girl or robust guy saying how much weight they’ve lost recently, and suggesting that you ask your pharmacist if you have concerns about your weight.

The drug these happy people are advertising is called Xenical. Xenical is one of the few sure-fire answers for obesity that the pharmaceutical industry has—it really works. And it’s a great idea, too. Xenical actually prevents fat being absorbed by your body by blocking the absorption from the gut. Sound simple, but let’s think about this a little bit longer.

Think about all the good fats like omega-3 and omega-9 essential fatty acids; the oils your body needs to prevent depression and inflammation. Think about the fat soluble vitamins A and E that are essential for healthy skin, eyesight and immune function. All of a sudden your body is not getting any of these. Then what happens when you eventually stop the drug? If you take it without altering your diet or lifestyle, the weight will just come back again. And (this is the best bit) if the fat is not being absorbed by the body, just where does it go?

Yes, you guessed it. One of the common side effects listed for Xenical is ‘gas with discharge’. What goes in one end, must come out the other. The hard option for weight loss is, of course, diet and exercise. Not as simple as taking a pill, but a whole lot healthier.

The curse
Women often complain that menstruating is painful and inconvenient—well now, thanks to the wonders of the pharmaceutical industry, American women can slash their periods by two thirds! Seasonale is a new birth control pill released in 2003 in the US. It’s not yet available here in Australia.

The regular birth control pill consists of three weeks of active pills, containing the hormones, and one week at the end of the month of inactive pills. When the woman stops taking the hormone pills and begins the inactive pills, the period starts. Seasonale is just like the regular contraceptive pill, but without this inactive week. So the woman taking the drug stays on the hormone pills for 84 days at a time. She has only one period every three months.

Side effects? Well, one of the major ones is spotting. A lot of spotting. In fact, in the first year of use it’s hard to tell the difference; in year one you can expect the number of bleeding days to be the same as the regular pill.

And the long term effects of taking a combination of estrogen and progestin for three months without a break? No different from the regular pill, the manufacturers claim, however I’m not so sure. The blood that forms the uterine lining is meant to be expelled every month in a normal bodily function that defines young, healthy womanhood—the lining is not meant to just sit there congealing for three months. Call me cynical, but I still don’t like it.

Slip, slop slap
In the 1800s, brown was the ultimate in unfashionable. If you had a tan back then, of course, you must have been a poor person; perhaps even a manual worker. Only the wealthy could afford to loll about inside all day avoiding the sun. Sometime around the 1970s, this all changed, perhaps because today’s working class is hard at it in factories and offices while the rich relax on the beach. Since the 1970s we’ve learnt a lot about the effect of the sun on human health, but despite all we know, we haven’t yet cured our addiction to brown.

But just because we’d like to avoid skin cancer at some point in the future doesn’t mean we can’t still tan. One lifestyle drug on the horizon may cure this. Well into human trials is a drug called Melanotan that gives us, you guessed it, a tan. This drug is the same hormone that is naturally released by the skin when triggered by ultra-violet light. In the body, this hormone travels to the melanocytes, special skin cells that produce melanin, the dark brown pigment responsible for our tan.

Sensible sun exposure is, of course, vital for human health; sunlight helps prevent insomnia, depression and osteoporosis, among other healthy benefits. But as to actually injecting a hormone so that you look brown—well, wouldn’t it be better if pale became fashionable again? Think Nicole Kidman and cover up.

So what about my quest to be thinner and browner with less time lost sleeping and fewer inconvenient periods? Alas, I’m not much of a pill popper. I guess I’ll just have to do it the hard, natural way.