Lorcaserin: A diet pill with least Side Effects

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Renata Alves

16 July, 2010

A drug company-funded study of 3,100 obese or overweight people found that half of those taking Lorcaserin for a year lost 5% or more of their body weight. Whereas those taking other similar pills loose only half of it. Experts anticipate Lorcaserin

AN EXPERIMENTAL weight loss drug has been invented that targets the brain’s hunger center, shown to be safe and effective for helping dieters ,researchers say.

The drug Lorcaserin, an experimental diet pill, which is showing promise in clinical trials. The weight loss is not huge, but, for now, the downside doesn't seem huge either. It works on the serotonin receptor -- the same appetite-controlling hormone targeted by the notorious drug fenfluramine, the "fen" component of combination medication fen-phen.But lorcaserin is far more selective than the drug fenfluramine and much safer, its manufacturer says, because it specifically targets the serotonin receptor associated with hunger while having no impact on the heart

A drug company-funded study of 3,100 obese or overweight people found that half of those taking Lorcaserin for a year lost 5% or more of their body weight. Whereas those taking other similar pills loose only half of it. Experts anticipate Lorcaserin will eventually be approved by the FDA. The FDA is set to review lorcaserin on September 16 hopefully.

The good news is that it has the least side effects,Lorcaserin also improves blood pressure, heart rate, cholesterol, insulin resistance, levels of inflammatory markers and blood pressure ,all of which are markers for future cardiovascular events.

Among the most frequent adverse events reported with lorcaserin were headache (18.0% vs. 11.0%, lorcaserin vs. placebo); dizziness (8.2% vs. 3.8%); and nausea (7.5% vs. 5.4%).