If you pass over the line into full blown diabetes, you will meet a wide array of medicines, vitamins, insulins and equipment. While they are designed to help you manage your diabetes, many of these items actually tend to INCREASE your weight, which in turn makes it harder to escape from your type 2 troubles.
If somebody could make a medicine that would help decrease your weight and manage your diabetes at the same time, that would be big news indeed.
Well, it looks like we just good that big news today. Arena Pharmaceuticals, the makers of Lorcaserin a have submitted their new weight-loss drug to a battery of tests involving 300 persons for over a year. The success rate was significant: 37.5% of patients treated with lorcaserin achieved at least 5% weight loss, more than double the 16.1% of patients taking placebo. Also, at Week 52 of the test, 16.3% of lorcaserin patients achieved at least 10% weight loss, compared to 4.4% of patients taking placebo.
SO do we have a winner on the way? Well, maybe yes and maybe no. For now, the FDA is casting a dim eye on the product and have indicated a refusal of the drug in its current form. The vote was 9-5 against it, mainly because the committee had concerns about the safety of the drug, particularly the findings of tumors in rats.
Arena Pharmaceuticals has a lot invested in this medication and it seems to work, so I conclude that sooner or later they will find a way to get those few votes and get their product into the chubby hands of type 2 diabetics everywhere. Here’s hoping this will be a win for them and a win for those of us seeking for a better way out of our problem.
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