Experimental drug fights obesity ‘by attacking blood supply of fat cells’

Obese rhesus monkeys lost on average 11 per cent of their body weight.over four weeks

Could provide non-surgical answer to the obesity epidemic



Millions of lives could be saved by a new drug which prevents obesity

Millions of lives could be saved by a new drug which prevents obesity, scientists say.



After a four week treatment with the substance , which attacks the blood supply of fat tissue, obese rhesus monkeys lost 11 per cent of their body weight on average.

Body mass index (BMI) and waistline also decreased, while all three measures remained unchanged in the untreated control group.



Scientists at The University of Texas are now preparing for clinical trials with human patients.

Lead researcher Professor Renata Pasqualini, said: 'Development of this compound for human use would provide a non-surgical way to actually reduce accumulated white fat.'

She said previous attempts to treat obesity have predominantly focused on drugs aimed at suppressing appetite or increasing metabolism, but these efforts have been hampered by their toxic side-effects.

The new drug called Adipotide , designed by the MD Anderson group , exhibited no unpleasant side effects such as nausea or food avoidance and all monkeys in the study remained bright and alert throughout.

There were minor changes noted in the kidneys but Dr Kirstin Barnhart, a veterinary clinical pathologist said this was 'dose-dependent, predictable and reversible.'

In earlier pre-clinical research, obese mice lost about 30 per cent of their body weight as the fat cells were reabsorbed and metabolised without the required blood supply.

Prof Pasqualini added: ' We're greatly encouraged to see substantial weight loss in a primate model of obesity that closely matches the human condition.'

The research team is now preparing for a trail in which obese prostate cancer patients will receive daily injections of Adipotide for 28 consecutive days, to see if weight loss improves their condition.

Weight, BMI and abdominal circumference of the rhesus monkeys continued to drop for three weeks after treatment ended.



These measurements started increasing during the eighth week of the study detailed in the journal Science Translational Medicine .