lost between 12% and 20% of their total weight in a short term 40 day trial

So many cases of exciting breakthrough drug discoveries tend to come about by accident when researchers and scientists observe side effects in clinical testing. Recently a medication which was being tested to help wean patients often addiction to cocaine and methamphetamine has been noted to encourage significant weight loss in laboratory rats.

When this new drug vigabatrin was given to one group of rats who had been genetically modified to make them obese a nineteen percent reduction in total weight loss was observed. Other rats who were of normal weight lost between 12% and 20% of their total weight in a short term 40 day trial.

Professor Amy DeMarco who headed the study believes that the vigabatrin encouraged the feeling of being full in the rats and thus they were not tempted to eat more. The research which was conducted in the Brookhaven National Laboratory which is part of the United States Department of Energy has been published by the medical journal Synapse.

It appears that as well as vigabatrin being put under further scrutiny as a potential treatment for drug addiction it will also be subjected to further testing for the treatment of obesity. The market for weight loss medication is enormous worldwide with the hundreds of millions of obese people in wealthy nations. If drug companies believe that vigabatrin has potential to be the weight loss drug of the future millions of pounds will be poured into its research and development.

The three best selling weight loss medications today are Reductil, Xenical and Acomplia which between them have hundreds of millions of pounds worth of sales annually. The Reductil and Acomplia weight loss drugs are appetite suppressants and Xenical is a unique drug which prevents some of the fat in your digestive tract from being absorbed into your body.

Ukmedix News will be looking out for more updates on the research done with the vigabatrin drug.