Quick post: What’s the fuss about resveratrol when you can have a 5HT2c appetite suppressant do the same thing?

Saturday, June 7th, 2008

The new fountain of youth may be an empty cupboard.
Starve a little and you’ll live longer, is the new conventional wisdom –when you restrict calories, lots of good things happen to prevent aging.
Looking back at the people posting on the lorcaserin post who are on the trial and who don’t feel like eating — isn’t [...]

Obesity research: Tesofensine and NS2359 drug family for weight loss - Better to block three receptors than only 5HT2c? Nah.

Friday, May 30th, 2008

So far, lorcaserin is the only weight loss drug in the near future that makes commercial sense to me, not to say it is the most wonderful drug in the world and the science is, imo, sort of a yawner.
I keep an eye out for better weight loss drugs on the horizon — so here’s [...]

Where do you put your insulin when you don’t have a refrigerator? Or electricity?

Monday, May 19th, 2008

Ok, this is strictly a pharma-geek post, but this is why there is science: combining chemistry, protein structure, medicine, computer science, and third world social sciences, scientists from Cleveland and Chicago made a mini-revolution: uber-insulin that doesn’t need refrigeration. How great is that?

Maybe a little back story: One of my side projects is working with [...]

(Updated) Lorcaserin - probably the “Chevy” of weight loss meds, but victim of “truthiness”?

Monday, March 10th, 2008

Is this a perfect drug? No. From an industry perspective, this is the perfect storm: you have the market data already. You know how big the market is. You know pretty much about any other side effects (except the heart binding, which is eliminated). You know market acceptability. You know safety and efficacy — if the heart receptor binding is eliminated.. . . And, you know mode of action, pretty much — that’s better than 90% of the drugs out there that work, but we have no idea why. The FDA and medical establishment still seems to think that body fat deposition is predominantly a matter of lifestyle choice — and so they are “eat less exercise more” focused rather than on getting this anti-obesity med throught the clinic and reversing the diabetes tidal wave.

And, you have virtually no competition in probably the largest therapeutic area ever (but who knows what’s coming up on the heels of lorcaserin.)

Why Sumo Wrestlers Have High Resting Energy Expenditure

Thursday, February 28th, 2008

So, what do you find when you put a Sumo wrestler in the MRI and get an image, slice by slice, of everything inside them? That and a recipe for a Sumo lunch below.

Sumo in Hawaii by hellochris on Flickr : “. . .22 year old Mongolian rikishi Hakuho as [...]

Obesity research: The French stop eating when they want to, Americans stop eating when others do

Thursday, January 17th, 2008

The stereotype of overeating Americans is true. Americans stop eating meals based on external cues from others. The French stop eating when they themselves want to. Here’s from Wansink, Brian, Payne, Collin R., Chandon, Pierre, Internal and External Cues of Meal Cessation: The French Paradox Redux?, Obesity 2007 15: 2920-2924:

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More Seven Deadly Sins: Gluttony

Sunday, September 23rd, 2007

Sardinia!

Sardinia, Satellite Photo (Wikipedia, Sardinia entry)

Sardinia, a beautiful gem of an island off the coast of Italy, known for gorgeous beaches, glamorous holidays, $2M birthday parties, and lately known for studying the genetics of its inhabitants. The population is considered an isolated one, like Icelandic populations, and therefore presumably more genetically homogeneous than [...]