Yes, when US researchers conducted a test on rats in the laboratory, they found that a medicine that aids in treating cocaine and methamphetamine addiction helps in promoting weight loss.
Researchers found that rats that were modified to be obese lost as much as 19% of their body fat, whereas rats that weighed normal lost as much as 12-20% of their weight when given the drug “vigabatrin“ for a short period of time.
Stephen Dewey, from the Brookhaven National Laboratory, US said that the study experiment on rats proved an inherent connection between obesity and addiction — he opines that under both conditions people undergo similar changes in the brain.
Amy DeMarco, who led the study at the US Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, said that vigabatrin stimulated satiety in the rats. This meant that the drug could satisfy the uncontrolled desire to eat among the obese rats.
As many as 50 adolescent and adult rats (of normal weight and genetically bred fat) were put under this study and were further divided into controlled and a group that was administered with the drug during intervals. The rats in the control group got salt-water injections while the ones who were fed with the drug received 300 milligrams of vigabatrin every day.
After about 40 days, scientists found that the rats of the control group lost as much as 12-20% of their fat while those rats that were fed with the drug lost on an average about 19% of their body weight.
Researchers feel that since the drug worked in aiding weight loss in genetically obese animals, vigabatrin could be a hope for treating obesity. The drug is currently undergoing clinical tests and trials for treating cocaine and methamphetamine addictions.
