This Quick Fix Drug Doesn’t Work

We keep hoping for a pill to make it all go away.  The fantasy:  eat as much as I want sitting in front of the tube, and never gain an ounce.

The reality:  The latest hope for the miracle pill based on neuropeptide Y (NPY) which is, as the researchers put it in their inimical way, “a potent orexigenic neuropeptide.”  In plain English, they tested this chemical to see if it would help people lose weight.  It did, but only a couple pounds more than the control group (7.5 pounds for test vs. 4 pounds for control).  See the abstract in the journal Cell Metabolism.

Add comment October 4th, 2006