Italian scientists are testing a new diet pill that turns into a clear, gelatinous blob the size of a tennis ball that may help shrink waistlines by giving dieters a sense of satiety.

The pill, currently undergoing clinical trials at Rome’s Policlinico Gemelli hospital, would be downed with two glasses of water at the first sign of a stomach rumble.

The unnamed pill is made from a cellulose compound of hydrogel, a material that’s powdery when dry but plumps up to a cousin of Jell-O when wet. The gel can soak up to 1,000 times its weight. A gram in capsule form quickly balloons from the size of a spit wad to a ball that holds nearly a liter of liquid.

A brand-name drug and its generic counterpart are chemically the same. They may have different branding names, colors, and shapes, but they are required by U.S. law to be the same drug.

The differences between a brand-name drug and its generic counterpart (for all drugs, not just birth control pills) are in the coloring, shape, and name, which are protected for the original company even beyond the twenty years of the original patent. There may be some differences among the inactive ingredients (i.e. the ‘vehicle’ for the drug) from one brand to another, but those do not have any effect on the desired benefits of the medication.

However, if a person has a negative reaction to a drug (brand name or generic), it may be worth talking with a health care provider and investigating a possible intolerance or allergy to one of the inactive ingredients, in addition to other possibilities.

Adderall is an amphetamine used to treat ADD/ADHD. Like many pharmaceutical medications, some of the side effects include loss of appetite and weight loss (particularly in adolescents).

A CNN story has highlighted the ethical concerns surrounding a doctors decision to prescribe the drug for the purpose of weight loss.

Herballife total control a herbal supplement that claims to boost metabolism, give you energy and increase weight loss. Its all-herbal, low-intensity formula is supposed to give you benefits of a fat burning diet pill, without the nervousness and restlessness that some other supplements can give you.Herbalife was involved in the scandal over Ephedra, a supplement that was found to have caused heart problems in some dieters. However, Herbalife adopted a new Ephedra-free formulation in 2004, after the FDA banned the use of Ephedra.