EDITORIAL : BATTLE OF THE BULGE; AMERICANS ARE REALIZING THERE MAY BE NO MAGIC CURE FOR OVEREATING.

THE withdrawal of two popular diet drugs from the market this week raises troubling questions about the way the Food and Drug Administration is responding to enormous political pressure over popular drugs.

On Monday, the FDA requested that Redux and fenfluramine - the ``fen'' in fen-phen - be yanked off the market because the drugs might cause deadly heart valve defects.

Redux was approved in 1996 after an advisory panel of experts reversed itself and allowed the drug to be prescribed, saying potential benefits for seriously obese patients outweighed the risks.

At the time there was no information that the drugs could damage heart valves, although the drug had been linked to a rare but fatal lung disease in Europe.

Now Americans are questioning how the FDA could have approved a drug that appears to be dangerous. It is unclear whether pressure played a role in the approval of the new diet drug despite the questions raised about it, but it's something that must be seriously reviewed.

The FDA said it recommended that both drugs be used only for seriously obese people, not for people who wanted to shed 5 or 10 pounds.

But despite the restriction, millions of chubby Americans rushed to diet clinics that were springing up overnight and received the latest weapon in the battle of the bulge.

Beyond whether the FDA acted appropriately, the lesson here seems clear. Americans' obsession with being thin prompted many who were modestly or even moderately overweight to demand the drugs, and too many doctors were happy to oblige them. The war on fat can be won, but it will take proper diet and exercise, not a magical miracle pill.