Like I get that it could be dangerous and the process is complicated but we can make medications that trigger/inhibit all sorts of biological functions why are weight loss pills that are scientifically engineered to work not a thing yet?
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Biology isn’t my field, but from a Physics / Thermodynamic perspective, where would the energy go? Energy isn’t “burned”, it’s transferred / used to do work. To expend energy, something needs to be done. If you aren’t moving, then heat becomes the only real way to expend energy. Hypothetically, if a medication could increase your body temperature (again, hypothetically, I’m an engineer not a pharmacist) that would burn more calories, but beyond a few degrees of increase this would be very harmful if not fatal.
Maintaining a body temp of 100 C / 212 F would certainly burn a lot more calories… but it would also just burn.
Dangerous side effects plague just about all medicines. One of the early popular weight loss pills was herbal phen fen. IIRC, the active ingredient is still prescribed today but back in the 90s it was an OTC supplement. An OTC supplement that has serious lung and heart risks. It can prove fatal and the risk increases over time with use.
So technically they are a “thing” but are strictly regulated.
There is a chemical that does just this. It is called DNP. It is very dangerous and banned, at least in the USA.
It works by blocking one of the last energy production steps in your body: preventing production of ATP. All that extra energy turns into heat instead. It is like if you put your car in neutral and just press the gas petal all the way down. You’ll use up a lot of fuel and blow up your engine.
The side effects are mostly over heating, but also cellular hyperthermia or your individual cells overheat and die. There are also some other toxicities that are still being researched. It is very hard to keep a safe dosage.
Such drugs exist, they are generally extremely dangerous and far too risky to use.
If you increase metabolism you can get very hot (hot enough to die of hyperthermia) sweat out all your fluids, etc. basically like working out, except when working out you can stop and catch your breath, with a drug you cant, dose it wrong and you die or at least have a really bad time.
All that energy needs to go somewhere. If you want to use up energy from food (I’ll assume that’s what you mean) without expending it on normal functions (such as metabolism, movement…), it would probably need to be expended as heat.
We have stuff that does that. For example, you could get infected with the flu to raise your body temperature, and “burn energy”. I think you know why that’s a bad idea. Even if we had medication that could do that without the other peoblems that come with infections (and I hear we do, though I don’t understand how it works), raising your body temperature extensively won’t be pleasant or safe.
Already is. DNP but that’s legit dangerous it was big for body builders etc. Ppl have legit died from it. But they say it’s 1 thing that really does work. I’m sure it’s a fertilizer or something like that
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