The FDA issued a warning today about the purchase or use of more than 25 products for weight loss. The agency said the products contain undeclared, active pharmaceutical ingredients that may pose serious health risks to consumers.

Most of these products are sold in retail stores and on the Internet. Some of them claim to contain only natural or herbal ingredients, but this is often false.  

The list of products for which the FDA warned consumers are:
•    Fatloss Slimming
•    2 Day Diet
•    3x Slimming Power
•    5x Imelda Perfect Slimming
•    3 Day Diet Japan Lingzhi
•    24 Hours Diet
•    7 Diet Day/Night Formula
•    7 Day Herbal Slim
•    8 Factor Diet
•    999 Fitness Essence
•    Extrim Plus
•    GMP
•    Imelda Perfect Slim
•    Lida DaiDaihua
•    Miaozi Slim Capsules
•    Perfect Slim
•    Perfect Slim 5x
•    Phyto Shape
•    ProSlim Plus
•    Royal Slimming Formula Slim 3 in 1
•    Slim Express 360
•    Slimtech
•    Somotrim
•    Superslim
•    TripleSlim
•    Zhen de Shou
•    Venom Hyperdrive 3.0
The warning underlined that the aforementioned products have not been approved by the FDA, are illegal and potentially harmful for consumers.

The FDA tests found that several weight-loss products contained ingredients such as sibutramine (a controlled substance), rimonabant (a drug not approved in the U.S), phenytoin (an antiseizure drug), and phenolphthalein (suspected of causing cancer). These ingredients were not declared by the producers.

"Consumers have no way of knowing that these products contain powerful drugs that could cause serious health consequences. Therefore, FDA is taking this action to protect the health of the American public," said Dr. Janet Woodcock, director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.