What Is Xenical?

Xenical (or Zenical, as often misspelled) is a weight loss medication for the management of significant obesity.

The main ingredient in Xenical is Orlistat. Well, so why should you bother to know about Xenical or Orlistat for that matter? Xenical or Zenical as people often mistakenly call it, matters to you if you have a BMI of 30 or more or a BMI of 27 or more associated with type-2 diabetes.

Zenical has helped many people fight obesity. But fighting obesity is a task easier said than done. If you want to lose significant weight, you have to eat in moderation, exercise regularly and than use Zenical as an adjunct to your dieting.

How Xenical work?

Xenical or Zenical is an effective, specific and long-acting inhibitor of gastrointestinal lipases. The inactivated enzyme is thus unavailable to hydrolyse dietary fat, and this allows about 30% of the fat eaten in the meal to pass through the gut undigested. In simpler terms, 30% of the fat intake of your body passes through your bowels and thus less fat is stored in your body.

Your body therefore, cannot use this dietary fat as a source of energy and convert it to fat tissue. This will help you reduce weight to quite an extent.

Weight loss achieved with Xenical may lead to a delay in the development of type-2 diabetes in some patients. Thus it can be said that Xenical can also help patients fight other obesity-related diseases.

How Should Xenical Be Taken?

The normal dose of Xenical is one 120mg capsule taken with each of the three main meals per day. It can be taken immediately before, during a meal or up to one hour after a meal.

Zenical works in the presence of dietary fat only. Thus, if you fail to have a main meal or if you have a meal containing no fat, Xenical need not be taken.

Always take Xenical exactly as advised by your doctor or GP. You should check with your doctor or our doctor online if you are not sure how you should take Xenical.

Always inform your doctor if, for any reason, you have not taken your medicine exactly as prescribed. Chances are, your doctor may think that it was not effective or well tolerated and may change your treatment unnecessarily.

If after 12 weeks of treatment with Xenical you have not lost at least 5% of the body weight measured at the start of the treatment, your doctor may change the dose or discontinue Xenical treatment.

Before You Take Xenical

Though Xenical is a potent medicine, it may not be useful to you if:

• You are allergic (hypersensitive) to orlistat or any of the other ingredients of Xenical, (a doctor will help you determine if you are allergic to Xenical ingredients or not)
• You have chronic mal-absorption syndrome (insufficient absorption of nutrients from alimentary tract)
• You have cholestasis (liver disorder)