With the increasing intake of junk food weight gain has become a major issue among all individuals. In fact 70% of all people in cities suffer from weight gain problems irrespective of geographical locations. Weight gain brings along with it plethora of other problems like increasing risk of heart diseases, blood pressure and a whole deluge of other problems. This is why fighting weight has become a thing of prime concern among all individuals and among all classes of the society. There are many ways to decrease weight gain and one of the most common practices is taking appetite suppressant drugs.

There are a large number of appetite suppressant drugs available in the market many of them are available as off the counter drugs which does not need a medical prescription. However these appetite suppressant drugs come under two broad categories:

1. Which act via catecholamine pathways
2. Which act via serotonin pathways

Among the former group drugs like amphetamine and phenmetrazine are no longer recommended as anti appetite suppressant drugs because of their stimulant properties and a very addictive potential. However drugs of the same class like phentermine,mazindol and phenylpropanolamine are now normally recommended for appetite suppression.

Current licensing of most of these drugs doesn’t allow use of these drugs for more than three to four months. However clinical trials have indicated that the new variant of these drugs can be very effective over longer periods in preventing weight loss. Of the different compounds used dexfenfluramine has the best pharmacological profile but however although it should not be given to patients with a history of depression.

Also there are natural appetite suppressant drugs in the form of pine nut oil, which significantly decrease the desire to eat without any particular side affects. The reason behind it is that pine nut oil contains polyunsaturated fatty acids. These fatty acids are found to stimulate two well-known appetite suppressing peptide hormones. With the intake of pine oil there is a significant increase in peptide hormones cholecystokinin and glucagons like peptide1. These hormones acts as appetite suppressors which send signals of satiation to the brain diminishing the desire to eat and their affect last for more than four hours after ingestion. when used appropriately, appetite suppressants can be of real therapeutic benefit without posing much of a risk.