'A weight loss drug that helps users shed two stones in six months will give new hope to the obese' the Daily Express reports. The newspaper adds that treatment is 'twice as effective as current treatments and can see overweight patients lose up to 10 per cent of their body weight quickly'.
The story is based on a Danish study of a drug tesofensine which was used in obese patients who also on a restrictive diet. It found that dieting patients taking the highest doses lost up to 12.8kg (28.2lbs) in six months. However, the drug was compared with placebo not with other currently used weight-loss drugs. There were some short-term side effects, but the trial was not large enough or long enough to look for any other side effects, particularly long-term effects on the heart. More trials are needed before this drug is likely to become available for people to use.
Where did the story come from?
Professor Arne Astrup from the Department of Human Nutrition, Faculty of Life at the University of Copenhagen and colleagues from other hospitals in Denmark carried out this research. The study was funded by Neurosearch A/S, a pharmaceutical company in Denmark, and supported by grants from the European Union and the Center for Pharmacogenomics in Denmark. It was published in the peer-reviewed medical journal, The Lancet.
What kind of scientific study was this?
This was a phase 2 randomised controlled trial in which the researchers wanted to test the efficacy (how well a drug works in trial situations) and safety of the new drug tesofensine in obese patients. Tesofensine was developed to increase the levels of certain chemicals in the brain noradrenaline, dopamine and serotonin as the levels of these chemicals are known to be lower in people with Alzheimer s and Parkinson s disease. Early trials with the drug showed unintended weight loss in Parkinson s patients, and it is thought that increased concentrations of these chemicals act to reduce appetite.
The researchers recruited patients from five Danish obesity management centres from September 2006 to August 2007. They recruited men and women aged 18 to 65 years by advertisement or by taking people who were on waiting lists for obesity treatment. Pregnant women were excluded, and all women participating in the study had to be using safe contraceptive methods (contraceptive pills, intrauterine device or have been surgically sterilised). Smokers were allowed to take part if their smoking habits hadn t changed for at least two months. There were several other exclusions designed to ensure a relatively healthy population, and, importantly, patients with a previous history of anxiety or depression were not excluded if they had fully recovered. However, the researchers did exclude those requiring treatment for a psychiatric disorder. This is because the chemicals in the brain that the drug affects are linked to depression.
