Treating Obesity as an Addiction?
Reported August 22, 2008
(Ivanhoe Newswire) — Using a drug designed to fight drug addiction may be helpful in combating obesity.
Vigabatrin, a drug designed as a potential treatment for people struggling with drug addiction, may also cause rapid weight loss in people suffering from obesity. In a current study, rats that were genetically bred to be obese lost 19 percent of their total weight during a 40-day period on Vigabatrin. Rats that were not obese lost 12 to 20 percent following the short-term drug treatment.
Researchers hypothesize that Vigabatrin is able to quench food cravings the same way to blocks drug cravings. The fact that these results occurred in genetically obese animals offers hope that this drug could potentially treat sever obesity, Stephen Dewey, senior scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y., was quoted as saying.
Vigabatrin is also currently undergoing an FDA approved phase II clinical trail to combat cocaine and methamphetamine addiction. In previous trials it has been shown to block dopamine increases triggered by drug use and block the process in the brain that causes a high.
SOURCE: Synapse, published online August 20, 2008.