Healthy Skepticism Library item: 10764

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Watts G.
In search of fat profits.
BMJ 2007 Jun 23; 334:(7607):1298-9
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/334/7607/1298

Abstract:

A pill to prevent obesity is proving as elusive to the drug industry as weight loss is to a growing proportion of the population. Geoff Watts assesses the latest candidates

With at least 400 million people worldwide judged to be obese,1 the hard pressed personal trainer needs an assistant. But not necessarily someone else in shorts and running shoes, badgering overweight people to do five minutes more on the exercise bike. The new help-out of sight, and in a laboratory somewhere-could be a “chemical metabolic engineer.”

Pharmacological attempts to tackle obesity are nothing new. Thyroid hormones have long been known to cause weight loss; unfortunately, that is not all they do. But the molecular biology of metabolic control has moved rapidly during the past decade or so. This is perhaps why Ronald Evans, speaking to the 2007 experimental biology meeting in Washington, DC, at the end of April, felt sufficiently confident about the future to invoke that bold concept of chemical metabolic engineering.

Professor Evans runs the gene expression laboratory at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California. The genes . . .

Keywords:
Publication Types: Review MeSH Terms: Anti-Obesity Agents/economics* Drug Industry/economics* Humans Obesity/prevention & control* Substances: Anti-Obesity Agents