Israeli Scientists Offer a New Solution to Fight Obesity

It is not a secret anymore that the entire industrialized world is supersizing at an alarming rate. Millions of overweight people anxiously look at scientists to come up with the wonder slimming pill able to win the war against the global obesity epidemic. Can it be that the cure is already underway? Israeli researchers claim that they have found a reliable solution to help frustrated dieters regain their health and slimness.

The World Health Organization estimates that almost 70 percent of Americans are currently either overweight or obese. According to its recent prognosis, if a reliable anti-obesity drug is not promptly found, in about 20 years EVERY American adult will carry extra weight, which will result in severe consequences for the public health-care system. People who have a “spare tire” around their waist are at a significant risk for developing a host of dangerous health conditions, including type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Despite vast research and a world-wide quest for the wonder drug, not a single anti-obesity medication from among those approved by the FDA has shown any serious potential to fight the epidemic of overweight. The most recent slimming pill, Fen-phen, was pulled out of the market back in 1997 due to its severe side effects that included damage to the heart valve. Two other expensive drugs that doctors routinely prescribe to their morbidly obese patients, Meridia and Xenical, have not shown any significant effectiveness in helping people lose weight.

The Tel Aviv-based company Bio-Light believes it can offer a solution to this global weight crisis. A company co-founder, Ronit Gross, said that they had developed a new, safe and effective, approach to tackling obesity. The method was first proposed by an Israeli researcher, Dr. Nir Barak, who had noticed that one of older drugs on the market exhibited significant weight-loss properties as one of its side effects.

Theoretical research of Dr. Barak, who specializes in nutrition and internal diseases, made him suggest that the histamine H1, a brain receptor involved in triggering common allergies, could hold key to weight loss. When allergy patients were given a drug that blocked the release of H1, they often gained excess pounds even without overeating. Dr. Barak then proposed that a H1-stimulating medication might be effective in helping people lose weight.

Such pro-histamine drug, applied in treating symptoms of vertigo, had already been on the market for over 40 years, said Dr. Barak. This medication is FDA-approved and has few side effects. Further research showed that, in addition to helping people manage vertigo, this drug showed considerable potential as an anti-obesity pill. In a trial, it helped a groups of severely overweight women lose a sizable portion of their extra-weight within just one month.

Barak’s new technology was soon licensed by Bio-Light, which team is now working on developing a revolutionary medication with extremely high slimming capabilities, which would be designed particularly for the North American market – officially the “fattest” region of the world.

Bio-Light scientists also hope that they will be able to compound the new anti-obesity drug with additional anti-depressive ingredients, since many overweight patients show symptoms of by-polar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and other mental diseases that often result in food addictions and binging on calorie-loaded snacks.

Tim Ford