Miracle drug against fat?
It contains the substance rimonabant, which unfolds its effect in the brain. There are so-called cannabinoid receptors - docking points for the body's own substances, which are released during hunger. Rimonabant prevents these cannabinoids from docking. The consequences: For many people, the feeling of hunger fades, and for some, the craving for nicotine. Is that finally the long-awaited miracle pill? A first large clinical study shows little spectacular: Women who weighed an average of one hundred kilograms, lost about five kilos in a year, the waist circumference shrank by about five centimeters.
This can also be achieved with a light diet, acknowledges study author Luc F. van Gaal. The effect will only last for about nine months. Then the bacon is on it again. Nevertheless, the European Medicines Agency Emea will allow the prescription drug (trade name "Acomplia") in September. But only for people with a body mass index over 30 or for obese with a metabolic disease. So far, few side effects such as nausea, diarrhea and dizziness have been reported. But experts like the Amsterdam neurologist Bob van Oosten fear that the substance can cause multiple sclerosis, an incurable neurological disease. And Georg Kojda, pharmacologist at the University of Dusseldorf, warns of severe memory problems and attention deficit disorders as well as complications in cardiovascular patients, asthma patients and people with gastric ulcers. "New drugs are often touted as a miracle cure without serious side effects, but our experience speaks against it," says Kojda.
