Utah State University researchers are hoping to pave the way for an efficient appetite-suppressant drug. The idea is for a diet drug to be ingested and, instead of the medication spreading throughout the entire body, the drug would be sent via small particles, targeting specific cells in the digestive system. This would mean better control of a person's desire for food intake, resulting in weight loss.

For the first time, scientists have linked the growth of new brain cells--induced by a compound known as ciliary neurotrophic growth factor (CNTF)--with weight loss in mice. The findings could offer an explanation for why use of the compound in previous studies kept mice at a healthy weight weeks and months after injections of the drug were stopped.

Arena Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced today that data from its positive Phase 2a clinical trial studying APD356 in 352 obese patients was the subject of a presentation by Steven Smith, M.D., Principal Investigator and Associate Professor of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, at the 2005 annual meeting of the North American Association for the Study of Obesity (NAASO). Over the 28-day treatment period in the trial, there was a highly statistically significant (p=0.0002) mean placebo adjusted weight loss of approximately 1 kilogram in patients taking the 15 mg dose of APD356. APD356 was generally well tolerated at all doses investigated in the trial. APD356 is a selective agonist of 5-HT2C serotonin receptors, which are located in the hypothalamus, an area of the brain known to play an important role in regulating food intake and metabolism.

British researchers think they've found a new solution to the perpetual problem of insatiability, one they believe also could help stem the world's swelling obesity epidemic. All we need to do is trick the brain into thinking we've had dinner before actually eating.

GlaxoSmithKline is currently testing a weight loss pill that brings new hope for the persons with weight problems: the pill activates a protein called PPAR-delta. The pill was created as the result of studies on the effects of enhanced PPAR-delta on mice muscle and metabolism. Initially, the effect of PPAR-delta activation was obtained by modifying genetically the mice. The new drug, called GW501516, activates PPAR-delta directly.