Once hailed as a miracle weight-loss drug, Fen-phen was removed from the market more than a decade ago for inducing life-threatening side effects, including heart valve lesions. Scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center are trying to understand how Fen-phen behaves in the brain in order to develop safer anti-obesity drugs with fewer side effects.

Fenfluramine, the appetite suppressant drug banned in the US in 1997 due to fears over its links to heart conditions, has been shown to have serious long-term effects. In a report published today in the open access journal BMC Medicine, researchers have shown that people who stopped using fenfluramine eleven years ago had damaged heart valves up to seven years later.

As millions of Americans gear up for the Thanksgiving holiday, a new research report published online in The FASEB Journal may provide some relief for those leery of having a second helping.

A study conducted by researchers at Mayo Clinic shows that obese patients with specific genetic makeup had enhanced response to the weight loss drug sibutramine, while others who lack these genetic factors lost little or no weight.

Viruses dramatically increase cellular metabolism, and existing anti-obesity drugs may represent a new way to block these metabolic changes and inhibit viral infection, according to a study published today in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

Anti-obesity drugs that work by blocking brain molecules similar to those in marijuana could also interfere with neural development in young children, according to a new study from MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory.

A new class of anti-obesity drugs that suppresses appetite by blocking cannabinoid receptors in the brain could also suppress the adaptive rewiring of the brain necessary for neural development in children, studies with mice have indicated.

Arena Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ARNA) announced today that following a planned review by an independent Echocardiographic Data Safety Monitoring Board (EDSMB) it is continuing BLOOM (Behavioral modification and Lorcaserin for Overweight and Obesity Management), a pivotal trial evaluating the efficacy and safety of lorcaserin hydrochloride for the treatment of obesity.

Patients taking anti-obesity drugs will only see “modest” weight loss and many will remain significantly obese or overweight, according to a study published on bmj.com today.

Orexigen™ Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: OREX), a biopharmaceutical company focused on the treatment of central nervous system (CNS) disorders including obesity, today presented the results of a preclinical study that further supports the Company’s understanding of an aspect of the mechanism of action of Contrave™, one of its two late-stage obesity drug candidates. The findings showed:

Researchers at the Monell Chemical Senses Center have identified a genetically-transmitted metabolic defect that can lead to obesity in some individuals. The defect involves decreased production of liver enzymes needed to burn fat and may help to explain why some people become obese while others remain thin.

Based on their surprising discovery that an obesity drug can kill cancer cells, scientists at Wake Forest University School of Medicine have made a new finding about the drug’s effects and are working to design more potent cancer treatments.