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Dieter's dream? Researchers testing new pill

04:00 AM CST on Thursday, March 4, 2004

By JANET ST. JAMES / WFAA-TV

Dieters have long been searching for that magic pill to make them lose weight.

In fact, researchers in Dallas are working on four different pills. They are doctor approved and supervised - and people can obtain them right now.

Becky Giles has tried every diet on the planet - Weight Watchers, low-carb, high protein and just plain eating right. Still, she's about 100 pounds overweight, and desperate to lose it.

"I'm wanting something to help," Giles said. "Nothing I do seems to help."
So, Giles is enrolling in a clinical trial at Baylor University Medical Center. Researchers are testing four radically different weight-loss medications, and they're looking for hundreds of volunteers.

"(We hope) to see how much weight loss you can get, and how much you can sustain," said Dr. Priscilla Hollander.

Hollander is an endocrinologist, a specialist in hormone diseases. Doctors have long known hormones play a role in obesity, because they are "messengers" that go back and forth between fat cells. Some hormones even go to the brain and tell it when the stomach is full.

Hollander said that body fat basically "talks".

"It speaks very loudly, actually," she said.

Researchers are just starting to unlock the clues to what fat is saying, but they know insulin plays an important role.

In Houston, Heidi Boyd heard about people having liposuction to reverse diabetes.

Diabetes is a major health risk associated with obesity.

"I know that insulin is what's causing me to keep the pounds on, because it's a fat-absorbing hormone," Boyd said.

Researchers suspect if they can get rid of the fat, they can do the same with disease.

Two months after having liposuction, Boyd's diabetic needs for insulin have been cut in half, and she's lost 15 pounds.

It's, like, melting off," she said.

The Dallas researchers are experimenting with an injection of the hormone amalin, secreted in the pancreas - just as insulin is.

"The duty of amalin is to regulate emptying of the stomach, and to go back to the brain and tell the brain that the stomach is full and you know, 'don't eat any more.'"

Baylor is also trying out a pill that uses a stomach hormone to trick the tummy into feeling full. And, they're testing a drug currently approved to treat epileptic seizures.

"They found by observation that people who were taking this drug started to lose weight, and that they would continue to lose weight," Hollander said.

Hollander hopes one of the four medications could finally be the magic bullet that makes dieters drool.

Becky Giles knows, though, that pills are only part of the weight-loss solution. She's dusting off the treadmill, and vowing to make lifestyle changes too.

There are different requirements for each of the experimental weight loss medications, but people accepted into the study will get free diet medication, along with free nutrition and exercise counseling.

Patients could also be prescribed a placebo as part of this research, but the nutrition and exercise counseling is worth a lot on its own.

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