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| home : pages : what's new in medicine vol. 3 : a new pill to double weight loss ... : | |||||
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A NEW PILL TO DOUBLE WEIGHT LOSSOrlistat (Xenical) will help women to double their weight loss when dieting. An i nternational trial of Orlistat was reported in The Lancet and the Journal's editiorial described the study as "a milestone in the study to treat obsesity effectively."Orlistat is the first anit-obesity drug that is not a centrally acting appetite suppressant. It inhibits the lipases-the fat splitting enzymes- and reduces the absorption of dietary fat by 30%. In the trial reported, 688 patients took an Orlistat tablet 3 times a day and were also put on a low calorie diet. Those who followed the diet and took Orlistat lost 10% of their body weight in a year, whereas those who only followed the diet, lost 6%. One year later, those patients that continue to use Orlistat regained only half as much weight as those who were given a placebo. Possible disadvantages of Orlistat are likely to focus on the consequences of increasing the fat content of a patient's feces by 30%. The long term affect of this on the lining of the bowel can not be predicted. While scientists from Roche have been working on fat absorption from the gut, neuroscientists from Yerkes Primate Research Center in the U.S. have been looking for a neurotransmitter that controls appetite. Such a neurotransmitter has been found and named the CART peptide. Many chemicals in the brain regulate food intake but it seems likely that if one is neutralized, the brain will learn to compensate and the effect will not be lasting. Experiments with rats have shown that those given CART lost their appetite. When the intake of CART as reduced, the appetite returned. However, rats are unlike human beings in that their appetite is prompted by hunger; ours is dependent on habit and social conditioning. CART was discovered while researching the effect of cocaine on the brain. --> return to menu / back ... (click) --> return to top of the page (click) |
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