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Senior Citizen Health & Medicine
Acomplia (Rimonabant) Miracle Weight-Loss Drug may
not be Magic Bullet but It Works
Not approved by FDA
but long-awaited drug being sold in Europe
 October
18, 2006 – Hailed as the weight-loss "miracle pill," Acomplia, still
known in the U.S. by its generic name "rimonabant," while it awaits FDA
approval, has been available to Europeans for months. This has provided
a better look at what it can really accomplish. Many senior citizens are particularly interested because of
claims that it reduces abdominal fat, a key marker for cardiovascular
disease, and other health benefits, such as increased "good" cholesterol
and lower blood pressure.
Lisa Esposito, editor of the Health Behavior
News Service, takes a current reading in the following report.
Latest Weight-Loss Pill Offers Modest Results,
Blocks ‘Munchies’
By Lisa Esposito, Editor, Health
Behavior News Service
A new drug billed as a magic bullet for obesity —
rimonabant (Acomplia) — does help people lose weight, although not that
much weight, and also helps lower cardiac risk factors, according to a
review of studies.
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Related Stories |
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Rimonabant (Acomplia) Successful Again in Reducing
Weight, Waist
European study says it also reduced factors for heart
disease in obese people
April 15, 2005 - Acomplia. which is still going by
its generic name rimonabant, while it awaits FDA approval, has again won
accolades for reducing bodyweight, waist circumference, and risk factors
for heart disease in obese people, according to results of a randomized
trial published in this week’s issue of The Lancet.
Read more...
Weight Loss “Miracle”
Drug Passes Two-Year Test
May help seniors lose
weight, increase good cholesterol
Nov. 10, 2004 – A
new report on the “miracle” drug Acomplia (rimonabant) says a two-year
test reduced body weight and waist circumference in subjects taking the
drug, demonstrating a significant reduction in abdominal fat, a key
marker for cardiovascular disease, a major concern for senior citizens.
Patients treated with Acomplia 20mg over the two-year period also
achieved a significant increase in HDL-cholesterol (good cholesterol), a
reduction in triglycerides and an improvement in insulin sensitivity.
Read more...
Read more
on
Health & Medicine |
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Rimonabant went on sale in Europe in July, and U.S.
approval is pending before the Food and Drug Administration. The drug
works in a new way, suppressing the appetite by targeting the brain
cells involved in the “munchies” familiar to marijuana users.
“The use of rimonabant after one year produces
modest weight loss of approximately 5 percent” of body weight, found
reviewers led by Cintia Curioni, at the State University of Rio de
Janeiro, in Brazil. “Compared with placebo, a 20-milligram pill produced
a 4.9 kilogram greater reduction in body weight in trials with one-year
results.”
This translates to weight loss of a little under 11
pounds.
The review looked at four randomized controlled
trials comparing rimonabant at two dosages and with placebo, after one
or two years of treatment. Participants, all overweight or obese,
followed a “mild” low-calorie diet, adjusted for individual body weight.
Only the higher dose — 20 milligrams — had
significant impact on weight, waist circumference, cholesterol levels
and blood pressure.
However, the higher dose brought on more, and more
serious, side effects than both the lower dose and placebo.
The review appears in the current issue of The
Cochrane Library, a publication of The Cochrane Collaboration, an
international organization that evaluates research in all aspects of
health care. Systematic reviews draw evidence-based conclusions about
medical practice after considering both the content and quality of
existing trials on a topic.
The rimonabant studies took place in 350 trial
centers in the United States, Canada and Europe.
The 6,625 participants were at least 18 years old
and overweight or obese. One study focused solely on people being
treated for type 2 diabetes; another comprised people with high
cholesterol or high blood pressure — important factors in heart disease
risk.
The authors described the weight loss pattern:
“After the 36th week, the level of weight loss decreased and the body
weight was maintained practically until the end of the studies.” One
study evaluated data after two years: “Patients who stayed on 20 mg
rimonabant seemed to maintain their weight loss, while those who were
re-randomized to placebo gained significant weight.”
People on the larger dose lost an average 1.5
inches on their waistlines. They also showed a slight dip in blood
pressure. The higher drug dose significantly lowered blood lipids (fats)
and increased high-density lipoprotein (“good” cholesterol) by 3.5 mg/dl
compared to placebo.
But on the flip side, side effects included nausea,
dizziness, headache, joint pain and diarrhea. More serious side effects
included psychiatric and nervous system disorders.
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More About Acomplia |
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These are links to Websites that
track Acomplia
• About the drug at Website for Drug Development
Industry -
Click
•
Acomplia Report - News about the diet drug Acomplia
(rimonabant)
•
Acomplia-Info.com
"Stop smoking and lose weight at the same time!" - It sounds to
good to be true, doesn't it?. These are however a few of the
promises this new drug makes. The drug is still under testing
(This article is written in September 2004), but Acomplia is
expected to be released for prescriptions to the public during
2006.
•
The Acomplia Blog
The
Rimomabant (Acomplia) blog - launches at
http://rimonabant.blogspot.com . This website will keep
people up to date about the development and market launch of the
new miracle drug Rimonabant (which will be sold in the United
States under the name "Acomplia"). Ultimately, this blog will
become a place where people will be able to connect with "legal"
pharmacies where they can buy Rimonabant online or buy Acomplia
online. |
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Obesity drugs, which often come on the market with
great fanfare, can end up being withdrawn in a flurry of lawsuits — like
Fen/Phen — or simply produce underwhelming results for people expecting
a magic bullet.
“Every time a new drug comes along, it gets a lot
of attention. The natural course is that people who want it will try it,
and people with have some lackluster results,” said Kelly Brownell,
Ph.D., director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale
University.
“Few people lose enough weight to make themselves
happy, more lose enough weight to get some medical benefit but overall
results for most treatments for obesity are disappointing,” Brownell
said.
Rimonabant has been billed for several years as a
potential panacea for the most troublesome of habits – obesity, smoking
and possibly alcohol addiction. Studies on its use in smoking-cessation
studies are currently under way.
Curioni’s team compared its results to a previous
review of orlistat and silbutramine, the only drugs approved in the
United States for long-term obesity treatment:
“The weight loss associated with rimonabant was
slightly greater compared to that related to silbutramine use, with more
positive impact on cardiometabolic risk. The effects compared with
orlistat appear to be greater weight loss and less frequent adverse
effects.”
No head-to-head comparisons had been done at the
time of the review.
The biggest difference may be in how rimonabant
works, by blocking the cannabinoid receptors in the brain. Brownell
called rimonabant’s ability to suppress munchies “an interesting
finding. The issue of food and addiction hasn’t been explored very much;
it should be.”
The review authors noted that the four reviewed
studies were sponsored by Sanofi companies. With the studies all being
sponsored by the drug-maker, results “probably represent a best-case
scenario,” Brownell said.
None of the studies analyzed drug costs. “The
fundamental problem is that even if one of these drugs caused
significant weight loss, the cost would be so prohibitive that it
wouldn’t be worthwhile on a public health basis,” Brownell said. “And
only a few people would be able to afford them.”
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