Cut flab without drug side-effects!

Vadodara: There is some good news for those popping pills to get cut down of that extra fat.
A seven-year research by a team of M S University’s Faculty of Pharmacy has opened new avenues to develop anti-obesity drugs could reduce food craving that too without causing any side-effects, which are common among the presently available medicines.

The research team led by professor M R Yadav, the founder dean of the faculty, has developed a new class of anti-obesity agents that would help develop drugs which can control the food intake among the wide-spread obese population.

The team had screened a database of 4,35,214 compounds using computer-assisted drug design techniques and identified a chemical structure belonging to the phenothiazine chemical class, which was developed as an anti-obesity agent after modifications.

“This is the first research which shows phenothiazine as anti-obesity agent,” said Dr Prashant Murumkar, assistant professor who along with research scholar Mayank Sharma and Jatin Machhi, currently a postdoctoral researcher at University of Nebraska Medical Center, United States was part of the team.

The new chemical agents act on cannabinoid receptor 1 (CB1R) that are responsible for performing various functions in the body like regulating appetite, pain and emotions. When CB1R are activated, the urge to eat increases. If this receptors are blocked or inhibited, the craving for food decreases, scientists say.

“CB1R is a class of receptors present in the brain, peripheral tissues and organs like eyes, mouth and oral cavity, gastrointestinal tract, cardiovascular system and immune system of a body. Our challenge was that the newly developed agents should not enter into brain to avoid its side effects,” he said.

“Our team exploited this quality of CB1R to design new molecules that target and inhibit the CB1 receptors which ultimately leads to decrease in food intake,” said Yadav.

The anti-obesity agents widely available in the market enter into brain causing side effects like irritability, depression, anxiety, suicidal tendency, neurological and gastrointestinal disorders in the patients who consume such drugs to reduce their weight.

“There is not a single anti-obesity drug in the market without any side effects. Hence, there was an urgent need to have a new compound which does not cause any sideeffect in a human body,” said Murumkar.

To avoid the side effects, the team adopted a new strategy through which the anti-obesity agents do not pass through the blood brain barrier and do not reach the brain. Instead, they act on only those cells located outside the central nervous system so that its psychiatric side effects can be avoided.

After the studies done on animal models received success, the study was recently published in prestigious journal – Nature.

The scientists, who are ready to share their research with pharma companies, have also applied for Indian patent of these compounds.