Friday, 15th of May 2009 at 10:39:50 AMWhat you may not know about prescription drugs may surprise you. Many drugs start out with one purpose but end up treating something else entirely. Viagra is a great example of this. This drug was initially tested as a drug to help with heart problems. However, one dramatic side effect was documented and this drug is now marketed for erectile dysfunction. This happens with other drugs as well, and Vigabatrin may be yet another in this class of drug.
Vigabatrin is a drug that is showing promise as an effective prescription diet pill that can help control binge eating behaviors.
Vigabatrin was produced as a drug that could help or even cure those with addiction problems and help with seizure disorders. Those using street drugs and other addictive substances may benefit from taking this. However, when trials run by the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health, a surprising event occurred. The drug was given to obese and non-obese lab rats. All of these animals lost weight. Those getting the higher dose (300 mg) lost more weight than those given the lower doses ( 75 or 150 mg).
The drug was shown effective in treating behaviors that lead to drug abuse, and also can be seen as a possible solution for treating severely obese humans. The drug blocks the binge eating behaviors that leads (most of the time) to obesity. This lends credence to the thought that some people with addictive tendencies can become addicted to certain types of food as easily as they could become addicted to alcohol, cocaine, methamphetamine, or other addictive substances.
During the study, those animals that were bred to be obese lost 19 percent of their body weight while they were on a daily dose of the drug Vigabatrin. Those that were not obese when the study began lost 12 to 20 percent of their body weight. The study was conducted with some animals receiving saline injections instead of the drug as a study control. The results were that they did not lose what the animals on Vigabatrin lost, if they lost anything at all.
Vigabatrin may be the new prescription diet pill that severely obese patients can use to get a handle on their health and to control their weight, possibly for life. However, Vigabatrin use for weight loss is not appropriate for everyone and it should be considered very carefully when offered as a weight loss alternative. Whether Vigabatrin ends up being the newest prescription diet pill for effective weight control remains to be seen, but it is nice to know that advances are still being made.
The biggest problem with “real” medication to help weight loss is that people end up abusing it. These kind of drugs are meant for severely obese people but often un-knowledgeable teenagers or weight obsessed people get hold of slightly weaker non-prescription version and put their own health at risk.