Drug shows success in fights against smoking and obesity

A new agent helps some stop smoking without weight gain and aids others in dropping pounds, but it's not a magic bullet.

By Victoria Stagg Elliott, AMNews staff. April 12, 2004.

Last month, there were health news headlines that seemed to offer a bright ray of hope for defeating difficult bad health habits.

A new pill, rimonabant, demonstrated promise in helping people both to lose weight and to quit smoking. But the scientists who authored the two key studies say that, although this drug could become a useful addition to these fights, the battles will not be easy.

"We have a drug that really attacks the two major killers in the United States," said Lowell Dale, MD, one of the lead investigators on the study that examined rimonabant and smoking cessation. He is also the associate medical director of the Mayo Clinic nicotine dependence center in Rochester, Minn. "But this is not a magic pill. People are still going to need counseling and discussion on lifestyle changes for this medicine work."

The medicine does, however, offer promise. Preliminary data from the phase III studies presented at the March American College of Cardiology annual scientific meeting in New Orleans found that, after one year, obese subjects on a calorie-controlled diet who took rimonabant lost an average 20 pounds. More than 44% of subjects who were on the drug lost at least 10% of their body weight, and the rate of metabolic syndrome was cut in half. Those on placebo lost an average five pounds, and only a tenth managed to lose 10% of their body weight.

For smokers motivated to quit, the drug doubled the smoking cessation rate. Those who quit also lost a pound on average, while those on placebo gained a couple of pounds.