A new medicine that began to be developed after verifying itself that the marijuana smokers undergo anxieties to eat, could be the key to control problems like the obesity and tobacco addiction. Rimonabant is a called tablet, that acts blocking certain receivers in the circuit of reward of the brain which the appetite and the addictions have been associated with.

The drug is in the last phases of tests in Europe and EE.UU and could leave on sale in 2006, to verify its effectiveness completely. One is a new drug class, whose action is exerted on a neuronal receiver known like CB1, associated to the call endocabinoide system. This system was shortage in 1992 when a group of scientists tried to include/understand what it happened in the brain of the people when they consume marijuana.

It was as well as it was possible to be stated that the human brain owns receivers for the active principle of this drug - tetrahidrocanabinnoide- and that the own secret brain a similar substance that plays a key roll in the system of the pleasure and the reward. This circuit would be the cause of that some people feel an excessive desire to eat and they cannot let back the habit smoke, among others addictions.

Positive results

Nevertheless, the development of this new drug class could help to reduce all these problems. One of the last given studies to know in the annual meeting of the European Society of Cardiology, in Munich, proved the effects of the medicine in 1.507 obese people who were put under diet and exercise. Half of them consumed a daily pill of 20 milligrams of rimonabant and the rest placebo.

The results indicated that those that consumed the pill were lost in average 8.6 kilos, whereas the rest had only lowered 3.8 kilos. “75% of the people obtained a reduction of weight of 5%”, said Nick Finer, of the Addenbrooke Hospital of Cambridge, England, that participated in the study.

Another similar investigation realised in the University Laval, in Canada, also drew similar conclusions: those that had taken the medicine were able to reduce in 10% their corporal mass.

In Chile, siquiatra of the Catholic University Francisco Aboitiz explains that “when blocking these receivers of the brain, are very probable that indeed the system stays out that activates the appetite”.

Against the cigarette

The studies with cigarette also have thrown promising results. An investigation in that 6,500 patients participated demonstrated that 30% were able to stop smoking and, in addition, did not increase of weight.

Other conclusions indicate that the medicine also could have benefits on the cardiovascular health.

One hopes that all these analyses draw definitive conclusions within a year, once it is verified that as much the people who lowered of weight like which they stopped smoking stay in that line. It is possible to emphasize that only 4% of the patients in the studies have undergone indirect effect, like nauseas and diarrhoea.