Obesity is rapidly growing all over the world and especially in the U. S., and keeping this in mind, Vivus has recently introduced a new drug to fight against obesity and excessive weight gain. Good news is that the U. S. Food and Drug Administration have also approved this diet drug, named Qsymia.

Initially, this drug was named as Qnexa, but in order to avoid any sort of confusion with other drugs, the FDA asked Vivus to give this special drug a new name. There exist many other drugs with similar-sounding names.

It was in February this year that for the first time in this decade, FDA has approved a weight-loss drug and that too with a 20 to 2 voting ratio.

According to the reports provided by Vivus, this drug is capable of melting around 10% of the body weight. Though this drug has been approved by the FDA, along with appraisal, it has drawn criticism too. There are concerns regarding offering overweight patients with more choices other than diet, exercise and bariatric surgery. Besides, this drug might cause few side effects too.

As said by Dr. Chip Lavie, medical director of cardiac rehab and prevention at the Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans, "Considering the heavy toll of obesity in our society, this agent has tremendous potential".