Serotonin enhances weight loss

July 21, 2006

According to a new study, Serotonin, a brain chemical, helps in the weight reduction.
Serotonin stimulates some cells which are responsible for curb appetite and blocks others that are reasonable factors to increase hunger.
    
Fenfluramine with phentermine, or Fen-phen, helped tens of thousands of people lose weight. But the combination also caused heart problems, including defects in the valves of the heart or a form of hypertension, in many patients and it was removed from the market in 1997.

Under the study it has been found that both serotonin and the drugs like fenfluramine and sibutramine (Meridia) (an enhancer of the serotonin activity) help to curb appetite and reduce the desire to eat.

These two drugs Fenfluramine with phentermine, or Fen-phen helped thousands of people to reduce their weight. But the use of these drugs also caused the heart problems, including defects in the valves of the heart or a form of hypertension, in many patients. Due to these reasons the drugs were eliminated from the market.

Elmquist, a professor of internal medicine at UT Southwestern, said” The more we understand about the pathways and the way serotonin drugs regulate body weight, the more it one day might lead to harnessing the beneficial properties of anti-obesity treatments like Fen-phen and minimizing the harmful side effects”.

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