A report published in this week's issue of the prestigious medical journal, The Lancet, further stoked interest in the promising new weight-loss drug Acomplia (rimonabant) but in fact provided little new information.

The report was based on one-year results from the RIO-Europe clinical trial, which showed that Acomplia could substantially reduce the weight, waist circumference, and risk factors for heart disease in obese people.

While this is the first detailed report on the Acomplia clinical trials published in one of the major peer-reviewed medical journals, the data for the most part is old news, since researchers presented two-year data from the RIO-Europe trial at the American College of Cardiology meeting in Orlando in March.

Nevertheless, a number of publications that do not closely track development of this weight-loss drug reported on The Lancet article as though it were first-time news.

WebMD, for example, ran a lengthy story on The Lancet report headlined: "New Weight Loss Drug May Help Dieters."

Dr. Luc Van Gaal (University Hospital Antwerp, Belgium), lead researcher in the RIO-Europe trial, reiterated in The Lancet article conclusions similar to those he has presented orally that "in this study, treatment with rimonabant over 1 year led to sustained, clinically meaningful weight loss, reduction in waist circumference, and associated improvements in several cardiovascular and metabolic risk factors."

In an accompanying editorial in the Lancet, Drs. Uberto Pagotto and Renato Pasquali (Sant Orsola-Malpighi General Hospital, Bologna, Italy) state: "A new pharmacological treatment to tackle obesity, and alterations of metabolic and lipid profiles that are often associated, could now be close to clinical practice.

"These data, and those from the other ongoing clinical trials with rimonabant, might presumably help us to better tackle obesity and related metabolic and cardiovascular disease.

"When additional drugs are available, we will also have the possibility to individually target the therapeutic strategies according to phenotype characteristics and to the pathophysiological mechanism inducing the disease," the Italian researchers added.

Other sources: Medical Week staff