Rimonabant: A Miracle Fat-Fighting Drug
Imagine
a drug that melts fat, boosts good cholesterol while reducing
artery-choking triglycerides, and helps smokers kick the habit. What
sounds almost too good to be true could soon be just a prescription
away.
Rimonabant is the first drug designed to affect your endocannabinoid system, which influences energy balance, fat storage, cholesterol, and blood-sugar levels. In 2005, U.S. and European researchers reported 2-year results from rimonabant studies that are nothing short of astonishing.
In the American trial, 3,040 volunteers were put on a reduced-calorie diet. Some were given the drug; others, a placebo. After 2 years, the waistlines of volunteers on rimonabant were more than 3 inches smaller (compared with 1.5 inches in the placebo group); 30 percent lost more than a tenth of their body weight (compared with 16 percent with the others). Most surprising, the drug raised HDL, or good, cholesterol by a whopping 25 percent on average. “And there aren’t many other drugs that can do that,” says Christie Ballantyne, MD, director of the Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention at Methodist DeBakey Heart Center in Houston. Rimonabant also lowers tri-glycerides and improves insulin sensitivity. For smokers reluctant to quit for fear of gaining weight, the drug may be particularly attractive. In early studies, it improved the odds of kicking the habit and prevented weight gain.
“We’re hopeful that in combination with diet and exercise, rimonabant will offer an entirely new way to fight the epidemic of obesity and diabetes,” Ballantyne says.
Whole grains: packaging helps you eat better
New
dietary guidelines, released last year, made it official: We should all
shoot for three or more 1-ounce whole-grain servings a day. Luckily,
food manufacturers are making it easier. In September, foods from
breakfast cereals and breads to energy bars began to bear the stamp of
the nonprofit Whole Grains Council, which guarantees that a serving has
at least 16 grams of whole grains. Not all manufacturers choose to use
the stamp. But you can be sure that packaged foods marked “excellent”
have one full serving; those marked “good” contain half a serving, or
at least 8 grams. Results from the Nurses’ Health Study show why grains
are so important: The more that women in the study consumed, the lower
their risk of heart disease. A 2005 Tufts University study showed that
whole-grain foods slowed the accumulation of arterial plaque.
Longevity: Good news for the pleasantly plump
Rarely
has a single scientific study sparked such joy—and such outrage.
Published in The Journal of the American Medical Association last
April, a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) analysis
of nationwide data found that people who are overweight actually live
longer than normal-weight people. Compared with underweight people, the
plump have even more of a longevity advantage.
Previous studies suggested that more than 400,000 people die each year from being obese. The new analysis, led by epidemiologist Katherine Flegal, showed only 112,000 excess deaths and found that being underweight was linked in the study to some 33,000 deaths a year. The people with the lowest death rates were moderately overweight—with a body-mass index between 25 and 29.9.
The new numbers may reflect the fact that doctors are better at treating health risks associated with being overweight—high blood pressure and cholesterol, for instance. The trend toward diets lower in saturated fat may also explain the encouraging numbers. But many experts say they shouldn’t be taken as license to fatten up. “Obesity is clearly associated with a host of health problems, including diabetes and heart disease,” says Jeffrey Koplan, MD, former CDC director who’s now vice president of academic health affairs at Emory University’s Woodruff Health Sciences Center. The unhealthy consequences of being even moderately overweight may necessitate prescription medications—something most people would rather avoid. The bottom line: America’s growing weight problem may not be as deadly as once thought. But maintaining a healthy weight, getting plenty of exercise, and eating well are as important as ever.