PILL THAT MAKES YOU SLIM WITHOUT EXERCISE

It sounds like wishful thinking, but drinkers may soon be able to get rid of their beer bellies by taking a pill.

Scientists have developed a drug which enables users to lose weight without cutting calories or taking more exercise.

Further trials of the drug will be carried out throughout the year and a pill could be on the market in four years' time. The drug has been developed by researchers at Monash University in Australia, led by Professor Frank Ng.

He was investigating the causes of diabetes when he made a break through leading to the production of the drug called Advanced Obesity Drug 9604, which speeds up the body's metabolism.

Obese men who took part in a trial lost an average of 1.1lb in a month after being injected with a single dose of the drug. As well as the benefits for drinkers, the researchers hope their discovery will have a serious impact on the treatment of obesity.

It is associated with heart disease, strokes, hypertension, angina and types of cancer. Fat people are likely to die nine years younger than slim people.

Dr Ng said: "We are hoping to give the drug to really obese people and reduce, to a certain extent, their fat so that they can become sufficiently mobile to begin the path towards improved health. Obesity used to be a condition associated with the trend toward old age but now we are seeing more and more children suffering obesity. This group has become our greatest concern but hopefully, using drugs like this one, we will be able to prevent them from becoming obese adults."

Obesity costs the British economy more than £2.5 billion a year. Levels have trebled since 1980 and one in five adults is dangerously overweight. The condition also affects nearly one in ten children under 11 according to a report from the National Audit Office.

Britons are now fatter than most of Europeans, with obesity accounting for 30,000 premature deaths a year. By 2010 Britain will have caught up with the United States, where one in four adults is obese.
Daily Mail, Wednesday 6th February 2002

CTM Comment: Once again we see the 'Pill for Every Ill' concept being applied by medicine for the benefit of those who are unwilling to bring the body into optimum condition naturally through diet and activity. There are of course those who cannot exercise because of disability. However the vast majority who will see the above article as 'good news' will be those who are looking to cut corners either because of indolence, or because they do not have the time. Such time-saving measures, especially when applied to health, invariably end in tears.