Contrave, A New Weight Loss Pill Combines Anti-Addiction Medication And An Antidepressant

Contrave, A New Weight Loss Pill Combines Anti-Addiction Medication And An Antidepressant.
An pro notice panel recommended on Tuesday that Contrave, a further weight-loss pastille that combines an antidepressant with an anti-addiction medication, be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. The 13-7 voter in favor of Contrave came in the thick of agency concerns that the medicine might raise blood pressure in some patients and increase the gamble of heart attacks and strokes among some users, according to the Associated Press 4rxday com. But panelists voted 11-8 earlier in the era that those future health risks could be studied after Contrave was approved.

The FDA does not have to follow the warning of its advisory committees, but it typically does. The intermediation is expected to make a decision on Contrave by Jan 31, 2011, the wire serving reported. Contrave is manufactured by Orexigen Therapeutics Inc. In October, the FDA voted against approving two other weight-loss drugs, Arena Pharmaceuticals' lorcaserin and Vivus' Qnexa, because of shelter concerns, according to the AP. Last July, a workroom funded by Orexigen and published in The Lancet found that Contrave helped users penthouse pounds when charmed along with a nourishing sustenance and exercise.

People who took the drug for more than a year lost an ordinary of 5 percent or more of body weight, depending on the dose used, the duo said. However, the regimen did come with side effects, and about half of contemplation participants dropped out before completing a year of treatment. Contrave is set of two well-known drugs, naltrexone (Revia, employed to fight addictions) and the antidepressant bupropion (known by a edition of names, including Wellbutrin).

The drug appears to boost preponderancy loss by changing the workings of the body's central nervous system, the researchers said. The analyse enrolled men (15 percent) and women (85 percent) from around the country, ranging in life-span from 18 to 65. They were all either fleshy or overweightm, with high-priced blood fat levels or high blood pressure.

The participants were told to nourishment less and exercise, and they were randomly assigned to use a twice-daily placebo or a combination of the two drugs at one of two levels. After 56 weeks, only about half (870) of the more than 1700 participants initially enrolled remained in the study. Almost half (48 percent) of those who took the highest amount of naltrexone frenzied 5 percent of their onus or more, while only 16 percent of those who took placebos did.

However, about 30 percent of those irresistible Contrave master nausea, the go into authors say, and other side belongings included headache, constipation, dizziness, vomiting and parched mouth. Still, Contrave may give people struggling to lose consequence a new option, the researchers contended.

The Lancet findings mimic those of studies into other diet drugs such as Meridia, Xenical and Alli, said Lona Sandon, an underling professor of clinical nutrition at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. "When these are combined with a modestly reduced calorie diet, self-conscious amounts of cross impoverishment are achieved," she said. "One stupendous thing to note is the study drop-out censure of 50 percent. This may have been due to side crap of medications, the fact that it is hard to stick to dietary changes for 56 weeks, or the occurrence that slow and only modest weight loss did not observe participant expectations".

Cynthia Sass, a New York City-based nutritionist and author, added that drugs occupied to treat addiction also appear to serve with weight control, supporting "the notion that nourishment can be addictive for many people". An accompanying Lancet column noted that one concern is that blood pressure did not drop as much as expected in the higher weight-loss group deerantler. "More material are needed to get a better overall assessment of cardiovascular jeopardy of this otherwise promising combination therapy for obesity," wrote Professor Arne Astrup, a nutrition whizzo at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.