Lose Weight and Quit Smoking Wonder Drug?

Clinical Trials of Weight-Loss Drug Show Promise

A trial of a drug that helps people lose weight and reduce heart disease risk factors has show promise. European clinical trials have duplicated results from North American trials.

The drug, Rimonabant, acts to block pleasure receptors in the brain. Another trial has shown that Rimonabant also helps people quit smoking and reduce alcohol dependency.

Could this be the quit smoking and lose weight miracle drug?

The drug company Sanofi-Synthelabo will market the drug under the trade name Accomplia. It could be on the market as early as the end of 2005.

The downside is that about a third of all participants in the trials dropped out because of side effects. These include mood disorders, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and headache.

Older drugs suppress appetite by acting on a different set of receptors, those that interact with chemicals such as caffeine. The weight loss reported in the people taking rimonabant was in the same range as achieved with the older drugs, and so was the spectrum of side effects that caused people to drop out of the study.

But if you can quit smoking while you lose this weight the side effects may be tolerable.