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Home » Long Term Weight Loss » Epilepsy Drug Shows Promise as Weight-Loss Aid, Study Says

By Alan Mozes HealthDay Reporter Latest Diet & Weight Management News

MONDAY, Oct. 15 (HealthDay News) -- A prescription medication originally developed to treat epilepsy may help obese adults shed weight when combined with routine nutritional counseling, researchers say.

Patients who took 400 milligrams of the anti-seizure drug zonisamide daily for a year lost nearly 7.5 pounds more on average than those assigned to dietaryand lifestyle changes alone, the new study found. But they also suffered more side effects than patients not taking the medication.

"The question was to see if more weight loss could be achieved if we provided decent quality lifestyle intervention, mostly dietary counseling, along with this medication," said study lead author Dr. Kishore Gadde, director of the Obesity Clinical Trials Program at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C.

"And the answer was yes," Gadde said.

The research, funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, appears online Oct. 15 in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.

For obese men and women who can't control their weight through diet and lifestyle changes, nonsurgical options are limited, the study authors noted. Just a few prescription medications are approved in the United States for long-term treatment of obesity, including orlistat (brand name Xenical) and lorcaserin hydrochloride (Belviq).

Gadde and colleagues set out to follow up on a 16-week investigation they conducted in 2003 that had indicated that zonisamide (Zonegran) at a dosage of 400 milligrams a day might offer an alternative.

Between 2006 and 2011 the study team randomly assigned more than 200 obese men and women to one of three groups. One group took 200 milligrams of zonisamide daily, another got 400 mg of zonisamide daily and one received a dummy pill. The participants' average age was 43, and their average body-mass index (BMI) was nearly 38. BMI is a calculation of body fat based on height and weight, and a BMI of more than 30 is considered obese. None had diabetes.

All study participants followed their treatment plan for one year. During this time, they all also received monthly individualized nutritional counseling, which Gadde described as "not intensive," to help them reduce their overall caloric intake.

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Epilepsy Drug Shows Promise as Weight-Loss Aid, Study Says

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Home » Long Term Weight Loss » Epilepsy Drug Shows Promise as Weight-Loss Aid, Study Says