Medicine: Block Those Starch Blockers

Dieters face an FDA ban on the latest get-thin-quick pills

Consider the problem. You have half a bottle of pills that the Food and Drug Administration has just banned because of inadequate knowledge of side effects. What do you do? Last week the answer from many American dieters hooked on the latest get-thin-quick scheme was to rush out and buy lots more bottles of starch blockers before they vanish from health and drugstore shelves.

Since last spring, the pills have been aggressively marketed as a "natural" product that prevents digestion of starchy substances, thereby allowing users to shed pounds even as they chow down on pasta, bread and pizza. Early this month, however, the FDA ordered more than 200 manufacturers and distributors to stop selling the pills, pending further research. The action was prompted by a rash of reports that users have experienced vomiting and diarrhea so severe that hospitalization was necessary in at least five cases. "God, did I get sick," remembers one Chicago woman in her 30s who was doubled over by agonizing intestinal pain that felt like an attack of appendicitis.

Such difficulties are not surprising. "These pills are made from kidney-bean extract," explains Dr. Victor Herbert, chief of the hematology and nutrition laboratory at the Bronx Veterans Hospital in New York. "There is a chemical in beans that reduces the speed of starch digestion. If you don't digest the starch, then it goes down into your colon, where bacteria ferment and make gas out of it. That gas can give you nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps and diarrhea, as well as making you socially unacceptable."

The pills' poppers, however, are more concerned about the social unacceptability of being overweight. They have bought millions of dollars' worth of the new product at up to $10.95 for a bottle of 30, and many come back for more because they do lose weight. Melva Williams, president of Melva Natural Products, a health-food wholesaler in Worth, III, says she has lost 10 Ibs. with the help of starch blockers, without getting sick and without reducing her caloric intake. "It started working with me almost immediately," she claims. "Each tablet inhibits the digestion of 150 grams of starch, which equals 600 calories. I'm very satisfied with meals, and I don't feel hungry in between."

Sixteen of the manufacturing and distributing companies that rushed to get in on the bean bonanza have sued to get the FDA ban overturned. One of the first questions the courts will have to answer is whether the pills are in fact a drug or merely a food not subject to the tougher drug restrictions. Meanwhile, "if any of the plaintiffs continue to market," said an FDA spokesman, "they will be subject to regulatory action." Possible penalties include seizure of inventories, fines and imprisonment.