Are Diet-Drug Combos Safe?

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Scary side effects

By Kimberly Goad

With few effective nonsurgical options for treating obesity, doctors often prescribe combinations of existing drugs to try to boost weight loss. Problem is, if those combos haven’t been adequately studied, you don’t know how well they work—or what the risks really may be.

"You have to worry about the side effects of each drug and then the new side effects that may result from the combination," Dr. Kaplan notes. Here's the truth about three common combinations.

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