Saturday, February 10, 2007

Xenical & Maltitol and Poo...Oh My!


Why do products marketed towards people trying to lose weight or cut out sugar seem to cause anal leakage?

As you may have heard Xenical is now being marketed to the masses with no prescription necessary. This means, people are gonna try it to see what it is all about....just once. Remember how you tried the Epilady in the 80s that promissed to rid you of unwanted hair? Then you used it once and realized you would need an epidural to ever try it again, but by then were stuck with the $100 gadget because it was non-returnable? Marketing genious...that company made millions!

Well Xenical is kind of like Epilady in a pill, but instead of ripping something off of you, it is going to slowly, or not so slowly, ooze out of you. Oh yeah, sign me up for that, please. Xenical supposedly works by attaching to the fat molecules you eat and swiftly moving them out of your system instead of letting you absorb them. I believe this was the same "medication" that in it's original tv commercials had a quick little end tag line that said "may cause frequent bowel movements and the inability to control them." Wow.

My other personal favorite thing to warn people about is Maltitol, a cheap sugar alternative used in many "low-carb" products. This stuff is bad bad news. Without getting too gross (although I did begin this post with the words 'anal leakage' and yer still reading), this stuff will give you the worst gas, bloating and cramps that you have ever experienced in your entire life. Right on the label it warns that "excess consumption" may cause loose stools, or something like that. I don't know about you, but I don't like to see the words "loose stools" on any food product. Plus, the symptoms come about after less than 1 serving size of the product, which is hardly "excess consumption" in my opinion. One time I had half the chocolate bar that contained the stuff...about 3 servings....and I thought I was going to die. Anyone around me probably wished I would from the noises and smells that were produced!

On that note, happy Saturday!

1 comment:

Nancy Solderitsch said...

Not everybody has a problem with maltitol. I can eat single serving amounts of it with no problems. But I can't eat lactitol and hate the taste of sucralose. Thank goodness there are lots of options!