I was watching the news the other night and saw a story about research being done on a new weight loss drug. The creators of the drug call it “adipotide”, and it works in a similar fashion to cancer treatments. It cuts off the blood supply to fat deposits, causing the death of fat cells.
The drug was tested on obese monkeys successfully. The monkeys lost 11% of their body weight and 39% of fat deposits without any change to diet or exercise.
Now, I think this is all very great. It has the potential to save lives. BUT, what bothered me about the news report that I saw was that one of the researchers commented that this drug would be a great kick-start to a diet and exercise plan. I don’t think that will be the case. I think people will buy this drug, take it to lose weight and resume their “normal” eating and lifestyle habits, then gain all the weight back… and then they’ll probably start taking the drug again. The yo-yo weight gain effect will cause even more harm to their metabolisms and internal balance.
We need to be very careful about the idea of a pill to cure obesity. It’s not going to do much good at all if people don’t realize what got them to that state in the first place. What do you think?
