Over the Counter Diet Pills

There are a wide variety of diet pills available for purchase on today's market for weight loss, and before you try them you should know what types are available, and what the side effects of the active ingredients are. The two most common active ingredients used on today's weight loss pill market are ephedra and synephrine, or bitter orange.

Ephedra is used in popular diet pills like Xenadrine, Hydroxycut, Metabolife, and Ripped Fuel. Ephedra, a thermogenic (increases the body's ability to store heat and burn calories) when combined with caffeine and aspirin, works as a weight loss agent by raising metabolism rates and increasing your heart rate and blood pressure. Since ephedra's introduction to the marketplace, harmful side effects like stroke, heart attack, seizures, and death have been reported. Although weight loss drug producers like Herbalife defend their ephedra-based products, most are phasing out these products due to the negative press focused on ephedra. They are replacing it with a new herbal active ingredient, synephrine.

Synephrine is the active agent in bitter orange (Citrus aurantium) and is also a thermogenic, but reportedly does not affect the heart. While most major weight loss drug producers claim that weight loss pills with the new active ingredient bitter orange are safer than ephedra because they have a lower intensity, many warn that the new product lines have not been tested, and so the negative side effects have yet to be revealed. In addition, when the other herbal ingredients in these diet pills interact with synephrine, it could result in an increased potency and/or absorption rate, which might produce similar side effects to those of ephedra-based weight loss products. New bitter orange-based diet pills include Xenadrine EFX, Turbo Trim Plus Ephedra Free, and Total Control, among others.