BBC Medical Science – An anti-obesity drug vastly outperforms currently available rivals, early trials suggest. Danish tests of tesofensine, reported in The Lancet, found dieting patients on the highest doses lost up to 12.8kg (28.2lbs) in six months. This is twice the level achieved by drugs such as sibutramine and rimonabant. …

Tesofensine first came to the attention of obesity researchers when it caused unintended weight loss when given to overweight patients with Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s disease. It works by changing the way that three nerve signalling chemicals, noradrenaline, dopamine, and serotonin have their effects on the brain. This in turn reduces appetite, so that the person will eat smaller meals and have a reduced urge to snack.

The Danish study, led by Professor Arne Astrup, from the University of Copenhagen, split a group of 203 obese patients into two groups. Both groups were given a once-daily pill to take, and told to go on a moderate diet, but half the pills were tesofensine, in varying doses, and the other half were “dummy” placebo pills. After six months, all were re-measured, and the researchers found that while the placebo group had lost an average 2.2kg (4.85lbs) those taking tesofensine had lost much more.

On the lowest dose, the average weight loss was 6.7kg (14.8lbs), the medium dose produced 11.3kg weight loss (24.9lbs) and the highest dose 12.8kg (28.2lbs). This performance is roughly twice that achieved by the best weight-loss drugs already approved for use in Europe.

The drugs did produce side-effects, ranging from dry mouth and insomnia to nausea and diarrhoea, with the highest dose increasing patients’ blood pressure, a concern given that many obese patients may have heart problems or diabetes.

The researchers said that the middle dose was more promising because it produced almost as great a weight loss as the highest dose, without the worst side-effect.

They called for bigger trials to confirm their result, and the drug is unlikely to become available across Europe until these are completed over the next couple of years.

Professor Steve O’Rahilly, an obesity expert at the University of Cambridge, said: “If we could treat obesity like we treat high blood pressure, with safe, effective and affordable drugs, this would be an enormous boon to health care. (10/22/08)
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BBC Medical Science – A drug developed to treat leukaemia may be a powerful new weapon against multiple sclerosis, researchers say. Alemtuzumab appears to stop progression of the disease in patients with early stage active relapsing-remitting MS - the most common form of the condition.

The University of Cambridge study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, also suggests the drug may enable repair of previous damage. …

Alemtuzumab - a type of drug known as a monoclonal antibody - was created at Cambridge in the late 1970s, and has long been used to treat leukaemia by killing off the cancerous white cells of the immune system. The latest three-year study, of 334 patients with relapsing-remitting MS which had yet to be treated, found that the drug cut the number of attacks of disease by 74% more than the reduction achieved by conventional interferon-beta therapy. Alemtuzumab also reduced the risk of sustained accumulation of disability by 71% compared to beta-tinterferon.

People on the trial who received the drug also recovered some function that had been thought to be permanently lost, and as a result were less disabled after three years than at the beginning of the study. In contrast, people given interferon-beta showed signs of progressively worsening disability. This was confirmed by brain scans in which alemtuzumab patients showed signs that their brains had actually increased in size, while the beta-interferon patients’ brains shrank over time.

The researchers said the findings suggested that alemtuzumab may allow damaged brain tissue to repair itself. (10/22/08)
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BBC Aquaculture Science – This seems an unlikely place to go fishing for your dinner. The dusty scrublands of Zomba West have been brittle dry since April, when the rainy season ended. The place is spookily deserted today - the funeral of the local chief. In the marketplace, we find only one stall open, run by children. And all they are selling is fish.

“When we first started fish farming - people thought it was mad - they told us it will never work here,” says Esther Fikira. She leads me to a series of dirty green ponds, dug into the baked clay soil. The water is murky, almost stagnant, but Esther assures me there is a big haul of tasty “chambo” (a local delicacy) lurking just below the surface. “If you had only seen the benefits this community has had from eating these fish,” says the 50-year-old, wading in, “then you will know why I will never give my pond away.”

There are now 700 fish farmers like Esther here in the bushland settlements to the west of Malawi’s former colonial capital, Zomba. You may have heard of the fiction novel Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. Well, this is the real thing - an ambitious food security project developed by the WorldFish Centre, a member of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). They are introducing small-scale aquaculture to ensure families in Malawi have enough food and income to buy maize - even in years when droughts affect their crops.

The project assists farmers by digging small, rain-fed ponds of about 10×15m on their land, or anywhere the soil is suitable for retaining water. Families like Esther’s use the ponds to rear common fish species - which in Malawi means chambo (a species of tilapia) and kampango (catfish).

At WorldFish’s local headquarters, just along the road, Dr Daniel Jamu and his team of scientists are breeding new varieties of chambo - selected to grow fast, fat, and feed happily on whatever waste is left over from households. Esther uses manure from her goats and chickens to keep the pond high in nutrients which allow plankton to thrive. The fish eat the plankton, and when they grow to full size, they are harvested, usually every six months. (10/22/08)
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BBC Technology – The British team that claimed the land speed record in 1997, taking a car through the sound barrier for the first time, is planning to go even faster. RAF pilot Andy Green made history in 1997 when he drove the Thrust SSC jet-powered vehicle at 763mph (1,228km/h). Now he intends to get behind the wheel of a car that is capable of reaching 1,000mph (1,610km/h).

Known as Bloodhound, the new car will be powered by a rocket bolted to a Typhoon-Eurofighter jet engine. The team-members have been working on the concept for the past 18 months and expect to be ready to make their new record attempt in 2011.

Bloodhound project leader Richard Noble told BBC News: “This is one of the most exciting things you can do on God’s Earth; and when you’ve the opportunity to do it really, really well, with the latest technology, you can’t resist the challenge.”

The 12.8m-long, 6.4-tonne Bloodhound SSC (Super Sonic Car) will be expected to travel faster than a bullet fired from a handgun. Its 900mm-diameter wheels will spin so fast they will have to be made from a high-grade titanium to prevent them from flying apart. The car will accelerate from 0-1,050mph (1,690km/h) in just 40 seconds; and at its maximum velocity, the pressure of air bearing down on its carbon fibre and titanium bodywork will exceed 12 tonnes per square metre. (10/22/08)
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