The global obsession with losing weight was never more apparent as it is this week. A clutch of new studies showed how some of the world's best research centres are spending millions in the hunt for the elusive no-pain, no-sweat weight-reduction pill. The Excercise pill*
The most different slimming solution came from scientists from the Harvard Medical School, which reported that they were a close to developing a pill to help people exercise. Their study, published in the journal Cell Metabolism, showed that physical activity in very overweight mice doubled when a hormone called leptin was switched on in their brain. Leptin was identified 15 years ago as a hormone that curbed appetite and led to weight loss. Harvard scientists now hope to build on the research to create pills to help people get more active without realising it. Next came the July 13 study in Nature Chemical Biology, which reported how new fat-busting pill led fat mice losing one-fourth of their body weight. The drug reduced the body weight of mice by a quarter and fat mass by 42 per cent after a week, with follow-up experiments over the month showing even more dramatic loss of up to 62.9 per cent! The fat-burners
There's more. On July 17, the journal Diabetes reported that a pill derived from naringenin, which gives grapefuit its bitter flavour, caused weight loss by prodding the liver to burn fat after a meal instead of storing it. Simply put, the pill causes weight loss without a change in diet. The bad news is that these wonder drugs are still in the pipeline and will take some years to hit the chemists. Till then, you have to fall back on the tried-and-tested weight-loss mantra of diet and exercise.For a one kilogram loss in a week, you have to survive on a near-starvation diet of 400 calories (one masala dosa or one large McDonald's Fries) a day if you are a sedentary women (recommended intake is 1,500 calories a day) and 700 calories if you are a man (recommended intake is 1,800). Only aerobic exercise and weight training, not yoga - can help you lose weight and keep it off.
