Introduction::Obesity shows a multifactorial disease and presents a serious public health
problem, with an alarming epidemic character. According to NHANES (National Health and Nutrition
Examination Survey) from 2015 to 2016, 39.6% of American adults and 18.5% of young people were
obese and 7.7% of adults and 5.6% of young people had severe obesity. Brazil ranks fifth in the world
ranking, with about 18 million people reaching up to 70 million overweight individuals. Despite shortterm
weight loss with diet and exercise, weight regain continues to be a concern. Anti-obesity drugs,
such as Sibutramine (SIB), Phentermine (PHEN), Fenproporex (FEN), Mazindol (MAZ), Amfepramone
(AMFE) and Orlistat (ORL) may play a role in weight reduction in patients whose condition
is refractory to non- and maintenance of weight loss.
Objective:: A systematic review followed by meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials over the past
five years to explore the efficacy and safety of anorexigenic drugs for weight reduction and consequent
treatment of obesity.
Methods::The search strategy in MEDLINE / Pubmed, Web of Science, ScienceDirect Journals (Elsevier),
Scopus (Elsevier), OneFile (Gale) is as follows : - search for mesh terms (Sibutramine, Phentermine,
Fenproporex, Mazindol, Amfepramone , Orlistat, Weight loss, Safety), and the use of booleans
"and" between mesh terms and "or" among historical findings.
Results:: It was observed that in the last five years of randomized studies no significant general complications
were found, with only 5.7%. The mean overall weight loss was 6.18 (± 2.8) kg in the mean time
of 12 months. The overall success rate among these drugs was 80.18%. The p-value values did not present
a significant statistical difference, being p <0.05 within each drug group analyzed, for both weight
and success rates.
Conclusion::The scientific findings of randomized studies on the use of anorexigenic drugs to treat
obesity have shown safety and efficiency in the last five years, with a reasonable weight loss and no
significant complications.