Hopefully STI's earlier announcements stating trials for R -...

Hopefully STI's earlier announcements stating trials for R - Salbutamol are still progressing this year. Any successful trials would could be huge for the company particularly in PR!

Asthma drug can fight fat
By Jane Hansen From: The Sunday Telegraph June 05, 2011 9:15AM A COMMON asthma drug may hold the key to addressing the nation's obesity epidemic.

Researchers at Melbourne's Garvan Institute of Medical Research found the drug formoterol, used to treat asthma and lung diseases, increases metabolism and fat burning in adults who are at rest.

"Research in animals has shown that formoterol can stimulate the growth of muscle and the burning of fat," said the study's lead author Dr Paul Lee.

"This is the first study demonstrating the beneficial metabolic effects in humans.

"Energy rate was increased by more than 10 per cent and fat burning was increased by close to 25 per cent."

Theoretically, that means an average 70kg man could burn an extra 200 calories a day, Dr Lee said.

Other medications that increase metabolism often increase the heart rate, which can be dangerous. But the asthma drug, which has been in use for 10 years, had no effect on the hearts of the eight men in the study.

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The results of the study, funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council, were presented overnight at a medical conference in Boston, USA.

Dr Lee said the preliminary findings had caused much interest in the medical community because of the drug's potential for addressing obesity.

"This is an important discovery as it suggests that formoterol may be used to prevent obesity and muscle loss in humans," Dr Lee said.

Currently half of all women in Australia, two thirds of men and one in four children are overweight or obese.

Obesity is a health crisis which directly costs Australia $1.5 billion a year.

Dr Lee said a larger study needed to be done on the drug's weight loss ability, but his team planned a new study to look at its anti-ageing effect on the elderly, where muscle loss and muscle wasting are common.

"Given the benefits we see in protein metabolism in our study, our hypothesis is that formoterol may prevent or treat muscle loss and frailty."

But Dr Lee said he had concerns the drug may be abused by body builders.

"The older generation of this class of drugs has been a drug pursued and misused by body builders," Dr Lee said.

"Formoterol is certainly not indicated for this purpose."



Read more: http://www.news.com.au/features/asthma-drug-can-fight-fat/story-e6frfl49-1226069478986#ixzz1OMlnOKW6