Researchers studying a new weight loss drug designed to help slow the progression of coronary heart disease say the results appear promising.
Coronary artery disease often occurs in obese adults and is very difficult to treat. Joseph Novak has battled heart disease. Plaque built up inside his coronary arteries so severe he had to be hospitalized two years ago for a stent procedure.
"I was in the hospital as a result of fainting during a stress test."
That's when Joseph decided to enroll in a first of its kind clinical trial to look at the weight loss drug called rimonabant. The drug isn't approved for use in North America, but researchers wanted to see if it could help slow the progression of coronary heart disease.
"That's a big deal because heart disease is a major complication of obesity and it's one that's very, very, hard to treat, " said Dr. Steven Nissen from the Cleveland Clinic.
Researchers at the clinic studied more than 800 patients from around the world with abdominal obesity and a history of heart disease. Half received 20 milligrams of rimonabant a day for 18 months. The other half received a placebo.
"In the coronaries we saw less build up of plaque in the patients that got the drug for one of the two measures of plaque that we performed in the study," says Dr. Nissen.
While some results appear positive, researchers had hoped to see even less plaque build up in the coronary arteries but this was not the case.
Still there appeared to be some health benefits. "We were able not only to get them to lose weight, improve their good cholesterol, but in those that were diabetic we actually improved their diabetes control to some extent.
"These weight loss approaches look like they are going to be an effective strategy for treating patients with heart disease but we've got to do further studies."
Joseph Novak believes he took the drug, not the placebo, and feels better than he did before.
"I have more energy, I just felt better."
He dropped 20 pounds during the study. His doctor say his arteries look better.
Dr. Rhonda Low's additional comments:
Other research has shown that rimonabant is an effective weight loss drug where people can lose more than 10 per cent of their body weight within a year. This is an interesting drug because it acts on the same receptors in our brain as does marijuana, but it has an opposite " anti - marijuana -like " effect where it actually decreases appetite. That means it may also have the side effects of nausea, depression, and anxiety.
The drug is available in Europe but not likely to be approved in Canada any time soon. But beware, you can buy this drug online. Last June the U.S. Food and Drug Administration unanimously voted not to accept the drug without further testing because they found there were too many potentially dangerous side effects. Clinical trials reported twice as many psychiatric problems after taking the drug -- depression and anxiety -- because of the huge interest in weight loss drugs, the concern is that many overweight consumers may turn to it without considering the significant psychological risks
The study appears this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
With a report from CTV British Columbia's Dr. Rhonda Low
