Experimental Diet Drug Has Staying Power
Acomplia Still Works After 2 Years of Treatment, Study Shows
Nov. 9, 2004 (New Orleans) -- The experimental diet drug Acomplia not only takes off weight and reduces waist size, it also has staying power. Unlike many other diet medications that lose their effectiveness after a few months, Acomplia takes off weight and keeps it off for two years.
Acomplia has already received high marks for its ability to increase levels of "good" cholesterol (HDL) while reducing triglycerides (blood fats) and improving the body's ability to handle blood sugar.
"Obesity is a chronic problem," says Xavier Pi-Sunyer, MD, chief of the division of endocrinology at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Medical Center and Columbia University in New York, and with evidence of long-term effectiveness, Pi-Sunyer says Acomplia fits the bill as an obesity drug that can be used in much the same way as diabetic people use insulin or people with high blood pressure use blood pressure medications.
An estimated 97 million adults in the U.S. are overweight or obese, which substantially increases the risk for other diseases such as high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes.
Pi-Sunyer presented the results of the study at the American Heart Association 2004 Scientific Sessions.
In the study, the largest to date, 3,000 obese patients were treated with either 5 mg of Acomplia, 20 mg of Acomplia, or a placebo for two years. Pi-Sunyer says the higher dose of Acomplia was more effective.
At the beginning of the study, the average waist size was 40 inches for men and 35 inches for women.
After two years of treatment, the average weight loss was 19 pounds and the average reduction in waist size was just over 3 inches in the higher-dose Acomplia group.
Moreover, about two-thirds of the patients who took the higher-dose Acomplia lost more than 5% of their weight, and more than a third lost more than 10% of their weight.
But Pi-Sunyer tells WebMD that while the average weight loss with Acomplia is about 19 pounds, "moving beyond that plateau would require adding something like increasing exercise or decreasing calories." The people enrolled in the study were only told to cut back on 600 calories a day, so someone eating a 3,000-calorie-a-day diet would have cut back to 2,400 calories. There was no exercise component.