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experts comment on research into a possible new obesity drug, as published in the Lancet

A phase II clinical trial suggests that the drug tesofensine could potentially be used as a treatment for obesity, by working as an appetite suppressant through the inhibition of neurological factors in the brain.

Prof Steve O’Rahilly, MRC Centre for Obesity and Related Metabolic Diseases & Professor of Biochemistry and Medicine at the University of Cambridge, said:

“If we could treat obesity, like we treat high blood pressure, with safe, effective and affordable drugs this would be an enormous boon to health care. However, to date obesity drugs that have been effective have not been safe, and conversely those that are safer, are relatively ineffective. 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.”

Prof Iain Broom, Research Professor, Robert Gordon University, said:

“This is not a new drug therapy re: mechanism of action, the drug has the same mechanism as sibutramine. The claim for double the effect of current drug therapy is a little premature. The researchers, although well respected in their field, are comparing this single trial in a relatively small number of patients with meta-analyses of trials involving other anti-obesity drugs already licensed. The relative amount of excess weight loss with the drug, compared to placebo, is not really that different from the first trials of other drugs in this field. We should therefore be a little circumspect about accepting these claims as to efficacy and await the results of the more relevant Phase III studies, which the author does say at the end of the paper.”

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