Acomplia: The New "Weight Loss" Drug

I'm hearing a lot of buzz about a new weight loss drug on the horizon. It's called Acomplia. They're already holding press conferences to position it as a "heart health" drug since it has "effects" on two major cardiovascular risks — obesity and smoking. The drug's maker, Sanofli-Aventis, is already making pitches to investors.

The operative word here is "effects." Which are pretty unimpressive.

In one study, the average weight loss was 14 pounds. This sounds pretty good until you realize it was over the course of one year. In the other study, people on the highest drug dosage lost about 1/2 pound per week (8.5 pounds over 16 weeks.)

Do the math. It's pretty underwhelming.

The pharmaceutical guys pitch these drugs like they're the second coming of the messiah, and they use percentages to make them sound a lot more impressive than they are. It's an object lesson in how to mislead with statistics. Sure, the Acomplia group did 400 pecent better than the placebo group, but the placebo group lost 2 pounds and the Acomplia group lost 8. Give me a break.

I wouldn't run out and buy stock in this one.

The Best TV Commercial in the World

I just saw this great TV commercial where a really big, fat guy in workout clothes gets on the scale at the gym and sees the number 240 pounds. The guy stretches, gets a look of determination on his face, puts his iPod headphones in, and... jogs once around the gym.

Time elapsed... 06 seconds.

He comes back to the scale, gets back on and looks at the number. 240 pounds. Then he gives the scale a funny look and taps it a few times, like it's got to be wrong. What happened? He just worked out didn't he?

It'd be funny if it weren't so true.

I get e-mails virtually every day which are mini-versions of that TV commercial. "What's wrong?", they whine. "I've been walking 30 minutes for three weeks now and nothing's happening!" Or, "I stopped eating French Fries a week ago and I haven't lost a pound!" You get the drift.

Guys, listen up: It takes a year.

If you lose a pound a week for a year, you'll be fifty pounds lighter come next April. Even if you're 400 or more pounds, that'll make a big difference. And if you are 400 pounds, then in 4 years — the time it takes to go to college — you'll be a healthy 200 pounds. If you've got 10, 20 or 40 pounds to lose, do the math. In the scheme of things, it's nothing. Stick with it, and in a few months you'll be looking at a different body.

Just stop trying to do it in time for the party Friday night.

The New USDA Food Pyramid, Johnny Carson and i-Pods

When Carson died a few weeks ago, there was a spate of articles saying "There will never be another Johnny Carson." They were right, but for the wrong reason.

It's not that there'll never be another Johnny Carson — it's that there'll never be another Johnny Carson phenomenon.

Johnny Carson happened in an era when we had three networks and everyone watched one of them. He was a shared cultural experience — everyone knew him. His shows made water cooler conversation the next day.

We don't have shared cultural experiences any more — at least not like we did in Carson's heydey — because we don't have a shared culture. We have many, many fragmented mini-cultures. If you follow Lindsay Lohan's comings and goings, it's pretty unlikely that you've heard of Miles Davis. Show me someone who actually knows who Herbert Von Karajan is, and I promise you the name Hillary Duff will elicit a blank stare. If you're a fan of The DaVinci Code, I probably won't run into you at a Henry Rollins concert.

Even the term "water cooler conversation" is a quaint throwback to a time when people actually had to go to the office to work. The internet connects us in paradigm-shifting ways, and yet gives us the freedom to become completely insulated. We can conduct what used to be shared social experience — from work to fliriting — in our bathrobes at our computer screens at any hour of the day or night. Shared cultural experience is becoming an oxymoron.

Take music and television. CDs are a relic of the baby boomer generation — anyone born after 1975, downloads music, burns his own mixes, and turns them into completely individualized playlists. Three TV networks have morphed into 500 digital channels. And choice and individuation doesn't stop there. You used to have to watch Mary Tyler Moore on Monday nights at 9 if you wanted to know what everyone else would be talking about the next day. Now you can watch Desperate Housewives at 2 AM on Tuesday with the flick of the "select" button on your TiVo.

Which brings me to the new Food Pyramid.

Nutritionists and other interested parties will argue for the next decade about all the stuff the Food Pyramid guys got wrong, but they'll be missing the point, which is this: the food pyramid is no longer "The Food Pyramid." It's a dozen different pyramids. Sure the details are screwed up, but the salient fact is that we're finally beginning to recognize that the days of "one size fits all" are over. The era of the iPod, TiVo, and digital satellite have finally hit the diet world.

So the new Food Pyramid gives us twelve different options. In point of fact there are probably 293 million, one for each person in the country. But 12 is a start. It's the beginning of a recognition of something I've been saying for years: everybody's different; no formula works for everyone. Your metabolic footprint is unique-- the ideal nutritional plan for you is as individual as your fingerprints.

The other good thing about the new pyramid — and believe me, there's not a lot here to write home about — is that it recognizes that there's more to healthy living than food choices. We can argue for a long time — and I'm sure we will — about the meaning of those exercise recommendations, but the fact is, they're there.

And that's definitely a step in the right direction.