Can a pill help to keep weight off?

Media Release

New HRC research: Can a pill help to keep weight off and does diabetes damage the ‘power-supply’ to the heart?

An effective pill to prevent obese people regaining weight they have lost and research that will help us understand how diabetes can cause the heart to fail are just two of the areas targeted by research supported by the Health Research Council of New Zealand (HRC). The HRC has today announced a $74.56 million funding investment into health research. “New Zealand is experiencing a diabetes epidemic and its impact falls disproportionately on Māori and Pacific Island peoples,” says HRC Chief Executive, Dr Robin Olds. “This year, the HRC is funding research that challenges accepted beliefs about how diabetes damages the heart, and could require a fundamental rethinking of therapeutic strategies.”

Diabetes damages the entire cardiovascular system, but Dr Denis Loiselle from The University of Auckland, will focus on its effects on the heart. One, potentially fatal, complication of diabetes is heart failure due to a progressive weakening and enlargement of the heart muscles. As the heart experiences greater demands from the stress imposed by high blood-sugar levels, it is forced to enlarge in an attempt to pump more effectively. The heart then progressively starts to fail.

Dr Loiselle and his team suggest that a key trigger of diabetic heart failure is damage to the cellular mechanism that produces the energy that powers the heart muscle – the mitochondria.

Mitochondria can be envisaged as tiny powerplants that generate energy and the researchers believe that diabetes directly impacts on their ability to perform this vital function and literally power the muscles of the heart. Dr Loiselle and his team will test this hypothesis and aim to increase understanding of the diabetic heart, with the hope of elucidating why current treatments for diabetic heart failure are have not been very effective.

Obesity is one of the greatest public health issues facing countries across the globe. One of the biggest problems clinicians face when trying to support patients to lose weight is that regaining the kilos lost is common, even after very successful initiatives.

Recently, research has suggested that there may be a novel way to treat obesity – by targeting a chemical messenger in the brain, dopamine. Dopamine mediates appetite and the feeling of fullness, and increases the body’s sensitivity to insulin and energy expenditure. Recent studies suggest that enhancing the actions of dopamine might be a way to treat obesity.

Associate Professor Patrick Manning from the University of Otago, Dunedin, will conduct the first controlled trial to identify whether the drug Cabergoline, which increases dopamine levels, is effective at preventing weight regain. The study will involve 200 obese people who will be followed-up for two years.

If Cabergoline is successful at preventing weight regain, it could have a major impact on how obesity is managed.

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