ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 4, 1996 TAG: 9604040068
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: Associated Press
Scientists sharply curbed appetite in mice by injecting them with a newly created drug, which might lead to development of an anti-obesity medication for people.
The drug worked nearly as well when given to the mice by mouth, a good sign for prospects of developing a usable pill, researcher Jean-Charles Schwartz said.
``I'm quite confident that one day or the other, this or a closely related drug will be useful in humans,'' said Schwartz, of the National Institute of Health and Medical Research in Paris.
Schwartz said testing in people is still several years away.
The research is reported in today's issue of the journal Nature.
The drug boosts the effect of one of the body's own appetite-dampening signals, a substance called CCK that acts on nerves in the digestive system and appears to act within the brain. The body destroys CCK after its job is done. The new work was aimed at blocking that breakdown process.
LENGTH: Short : 30 linesby CNB