Weight Reduction

The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved the first diet drug to be sold without a prescription. The drug is a lower-dose version of the prescription medicine Xenical and will become available to consumers this summer under the name alli. The pill will be marketed to people over 18 and will compete against nutritional supplements, which do not require FDA approval and the rigorous safety and efficacy testing that entails.

For years, Michelle Cuellar exercised five days a week. "But you wouldn't have known it by looking at me," says the 33-year-old mother of two. "I felt fit -- but I was still fat." No matter what Cuellar did -- run on the treadmill for 30 minutes at a time or attend the occasional spinning class or boot camp, her weight rose. By last summer, she carried 176 pounds on her 5-foot-6 frame. Then, last fall, for the first time in her life, Cuellar started shrinking.

IN his office at London's Covent Garden, Peter Mario Katona keeps a thick file of hate mail. The Royal Opera's director of casting even framed one particularly unquotable letter and hung it on his wall. His sin? Firing American soprano Deborah Voigt before she could sing her signature title role in Strauss' "Ariadne auf Naxos" in 2004. Her sin? She was too fat to fit into Ariadne's little black dress.

Please investigate hypnosis for weight loss. GWEN H. Compton --- The product: You're getting sleepy. Very sleepy. But are you also getting skinny? Hypnotherapists across the country are staking claim to the multibillion-dollar weight-loss industry. Through websites, newspaper classifieds, radio spots and local TV ads, they pitch waist-reducing therapy sessions and slimming CDs. Some even offer to hypnotize clients over the phone.

The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday fined the marketers of four weight-loss pills $25 million for making false advertising claims including rapid weight loss and cancer prevention. FTC Chairwoman Deborah Platt Majoras said that the products would remain on store shelves, but that the companies would have to stop making the false claims. "What we challenge is the marketing of the claims," she said.

Losing just 11 pounds can decrease the risk of the most aggressive form of prostate cancer by about 40% in overweight men, researchers reported this week in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. Previous studies had shown obese men were more likely to develop the aggressive form, but this is the first study to show weight loss can reduce risk. Researchers from the American Cancer Society studied nearly 70,000 men over a 10-year period to reach the conclusion.

In separate incidents on opposite coasts this week, the seriously thin became a serious issue. Early Monday morning, celebutante Nicole Richie was arrested for driving under the influence after she was spotted driving the wrong way on the 134 Freeway. According to the booking sheet, the 25-year-old star of "The Simple Life" is 5 feet 1 and 85 pounds.

Hunger pangs are hard to resist. So the recent findings that a little more lean protein at breakfast will last you until lunch could provide the boost to help you maintain your weight during the upcoming holidays and beyond. Of all the macronutrients that we eat, "protein blunts your hunger the most and is the most satiating," notes Wayne Campbell, who leads a team investigating protein at Purdue University's Campbell Laboratory for Integrative Research in Nutrition, Fitness and Aging.

The holidays are upon us, presenting wonderful opportunity to celebrate and enjoy good food. No doubt many of us will heartily indulge ... and feel the guilt. The guilt is hard to avoid. Hardly a day goes by without the media trumpeting obesity fears: 65% of us are overweight or obese, we're gaining weight at unprecedented rates, we don't know how to eat, we're not exercising enough, we're the first generation that's going to die younger than our parents.

THE shoppers looked skeptical. "This is the first drink that can actually help you lose weight," sales representative Anthony Monforte said confidently, handing out tiny samples of a new soft drink, Celsius, at a Vitamin Shoppe in Aliso Viejo. Leslie Bedford and Marsha McDonogh, office workers who had stopped by on their lunch break, took cautious sips. "Hmmm. It does taste like RC Cola," McDonogh said, agreeing with Monforte's description.