Diet Drugs - Are they healthy

I have been struggling with my weight loss for several months. The Dr. has been on me steadily to drop 40-50 lbs due to my High Blood Pressure. After a few visits and explaining weight loss has not been easy for me, he wrote me a prescrition for 'Orlistat' aka 'Alli'. I have been reading the side effects on this stuff and it sounds gross. Are the benefits of the drug worth the possible side effects?

Your doctor will be able to advise you on how to make the drug work best and reduce the possibility of side-effects.  Orlistat prevents the absorption of fat and it comes out of the other end.  (That's the yuck part)  But if you follow a very low-fat diet that possibility is reduced.  Of course, if you take a lot of the fat and fatty foods out of your diet and watch the portion-sizes of the other foods then you'd find you lost weight at the same time.

If your doctor has recommended it, he clearly thinks you'd benefit.  Even if there are a few downsides it has to be better than blood pressure medication and the other risks associated with continuing to be overweight.