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American Morning

Epilepsy Drug Effective For Obesity?

Aired October 08, 2003 - 09:44   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: New research suggests that a drug designed to treat epilepsy might also help curb obesity.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us here in person, which is nice for us.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I like being here.

O'BRIEN: Hey, Sanjay. Nice to have you in New York.

GUPTA: Good morning.

Topiramate, that's the name of the drug. It's a drug used to treat epilepsy. It's been around for about seven years. This is sort of one of those interesting stories in medicine. So, they designed this drug basically to treat epilepsy, which is long-term seizures. And they sort of just see this interesting side effect, a good side effect, as it turns out, in some ways, that's coming out of this particular drug.

It was originally approved as an anti-seizure drug in 1996. The over-the-counter name, most people know it as this, Topamax. What they started to see was that people in a recent study actually had significant weight loss. So some of the researchers who were noticing this decided to actually put it to the test and find out in fact whether or not this anti-seizure medication could also promote weight loss reliably. This is what they did; 385 people between the ages of 18 and 75, so just about all healthy adults here.

And what they did was, they gave some of them a placebo and they gave some of them this actual medication. What they found was that placebo patients had about a 2.6 percent weight loss. Now, this was over 24 weeks or six months. That's within statistical variation. The folks on the Topamax had a 5 to 6.5 percent weight loss, which was 5 to 10 percent of their overall body weight. So that was a pretty significant weight loss, not to say that this medication necessarily is ready for prime time.

It's still a seizure medication, for the most part, but this is a weight-loss thing that they started to see. And they might have to test it a little bit further.

O'BRIEN: I have friends who are epileptic. And they often complain about just how tough the drugs are when you have epilepsy. So I'd be curious to know about the risks to someone who does not have epilepsy, fro whom obviously being overweight is a big medical problem. But isn't there some risk to taking a strong medicine like this?

GUPTA: Sure. And there are risks to this drug as well. Certainly, the doses that they have to give to treat seizures can cause significant side effects, which are pretty well documented; the side effects of medication like this, drowsiness, tingling, difficulty with memory, concentration, attention, all of this being dose-related. So, as you may know, Soledad, sometimes, your friends even have to take escalating dose of the medication to actually treat their seizures.

But what I find so fascinating is that these drugs are clearly working on a part of the brain that is responsible not only for hunger, but starvation. There's another epilepsy drug that actually causes people to overeat. So, clearly, these epilepsy drugs are on to something here. There's something in the brain that's being triggered by this, whether it's causing people to feel full or causing people to feel more hungry. If they can sort of figure that out, they may be on to something here.

O'BRIEN: A big aha for researchers, I would imagine.

GUPTA: Exactly.

O'BRIEN: Sanjay, nice to see you. Thanks, as always.

GUPTA: Good to see you. Take care.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired October 8, 2003 - 09:44   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: New research suggests that a drug designed to treat epilepsy might also help curb obesity.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us here in person, which is nice for us.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I like being here.

O'BRIEN: Hey, Sanjay. Nice to have you in New York.

GUPTA: Good morning.

Topiramate, that's the name of the drug. It's a drug used to treat epilepsy. It's been around for about seven years. This is sort of one of those interesting stories in medicine. So, they designed this drug basically to treat epilepsy, which is long-term seizures. And they sort of just see this interesting side effect, a good side effect, as it turns out, in some ways, that's coming out of this particular drug.

It was originally approved as an anti-seizure drug in 1996. The over-the-counter name, most people know it as this, Topamax. What they started to see was that people in a recent study actually had significant weight loss. So some of the researchers who were noticing this decided to actually put it to the test and find out in fact whether or not this anti-seizure medication could also promote weight loss reliably. This is what they did; 385 people between the ages of 18 and 75, so just about all healthy adults here.

And what they did was, they gave some of them a placebo and they gave some of them this actual medication. What they found was that placebo patients had about a 2.6 percent weight loss. Now, this was over 24 weeks or six months. That's within statistical variation. The folks on the Topamax had a 5 to 6.5 percent weight loss, which was 5 to 10 percent of their overall body weight. So that was a pretty significant weight loss, not to say that this medication necessarily is ready for prime time.

It's still a seizure medication, for the most part, but this is a weight-loss thing that they started to see. And they might have to test it a little bit further.

O'BRIEN: I have friends who are epileptic. And they often complain about just how tough the drugs are when you have epilepsy. So I'd be curious to know about the risks to someone who does not have epilepsy, fro whom obviously being overweight is a big medical problem. But isn't there some risk to taking a strong medicine like this?

GUPTA: Sure. And there are risks to this drug as well. Certainly, the doses that they have to give to treat seizures can cause significant side effects, which are pretty well documented; the side effects of medication like this, drowsiness, tingling, difficulty with memory, concentration, attention, all of this being dose-related. So, as you may know, Soledad, sometimes, your friends even have to take escalating dose of the medication to actually treat their seizures.

But what I find so fascinating is that these drugs are clearly working on a part of the brain that is responsible not only for hunger, but starvation. There's another epilepsy drug that actually causes people to overeat. So, clearly, these epilepsy drugs are on to something here. There's something in the brain that's being triggered by this, whether it's causing people to feel full or causing people to feel more hungry. If they can sort of figure that out, they may be on to something here.

O'BRIEN: A big aha for researchers, I would imagine.

GUPTA: Exactly.

O'BRIEN: Sanjay, nice to see you. Thanks, as always.

GUPTA: Good to see you. Take care.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com