New obesity drug ‘can double weight loss’
Reported October 23, 2008
Patients on the drug lost an average of more than 24 pounds, or 11 kilograms, over six months.
A quarter of adults in Britain are now either overweight or obese, official figures show, and the scale of the problem is predicted to increase significantly in coming years.
The new drug works by restricting feelings of hunger in the brain.
As a result, patients eat less and their bodies start to burn off reserves of fat.
Scientists at the University of Copenhagen tested the drug, called tesofensine, on 203 patients, who each weighed an average of 15 stone.
Taking the drug at a dose of 0.5 mg just once a day for six months, at the same time as eating a healthy diet, produced an average weight loss of 11.3 kg, or 1 st 10 lb, around twice that of standard weight loss drugs.
Patients who took a placebo drug and also ate a healthy diet lost an average of just 4.8lb, or 2.2 kg, over the six months.
Tesofensine’s anti-obesity properties were discovered when it was being tested as a treatment for Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.
Scientists realised that the unintentional weight loss it caused could be harnessed to tackle obesity.
Professor Arne Astrup, from the University of Copenhagen, in Denmark, who led the study, published in the Lancet medical journal, said that tesofensine had “the potential to produce twice the weight loss as currently approved drugs”.
However, she warned that larger studies were needed to confirm the findings.
If these prove successful, the drug could be available on the market within around three to five years.
Prof Steve O’Rahilly, an expert in obesity at the University of Cambridge, said: “The results with this new drug demonstrate that, over a 6 month period, it is quite effective. However as the drug is likely to have actions on parts of the brain not involved in weight control, the risk of serious side effects on longer term administration will need to be watched very carefully.”
Doctors warn that obesity increases the risk of developing a number of potentially deadly conditions including heart disease, diabetes and at least six different types of cancer.
Obesity is calculated using the Body Mass Index (BMI), which considers weight in comparison to height.
A BMI score of between 18 and 25 is considered normal, while a score of more than 25 is overweight and one of more than 30 is clinically obese.
