From Your Health Journal…..”A very interesting article today from one of my favorite site to promote called NewsMax Health called Adult Diabetes Drug Helps Severely Obese Youths Lose Weight. A drug that was originally approved to treat and help adults with diabetes could possibly also help severely obese youths lose some weight. The researchers of this study state there are few treatments available for severely obese children outside of lifestyle changes and surgery, and they wanted to see if the weight loss seen in adults would also happen in children with a drug called Exenatide. Between 4 and 6 percent of American teens and children under 18 years of age are severely obese. Severe obesity in children is classified as a body mass index (BMI), a measurement of weight in relation to height, of 35 or more on the adult scale. That’s the BMI of a 12-year-old girl who is five feet tall and 155 pounds. BMI is not 100% accurate, but is just an indication of whether someones weight falls within a healthy range. Please visit the NewsMax web site (link provided below) to read the complete article. It will be interesting to see if this will be approved sometime in the future for obese children to lose weight. Right now, the doctors in the study do not recommend usage by children to lose weight.”

From the article…..

A drug originally approved to treat adults with diabetes may also help severely obese youths lose some weight, according to a new study.

“We’re encouraged by these trial results because there is potentially a role for this class (of drugs) to be useful in terms of weight reduction and cardiovascular risk control,” said Aaron Kelly, the study’s lead author from the University of Minnesota Medical School in Minneapolis.

Exenatide, which is marketed by Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc. as Byetta, was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2005 to boost production of the hormone insulin in adults with Type 2 diabetes. People with the disease do not produce enough of the hormone, or their body is resistant to it.

The drug, which is injected in a person’s belly twice a day and costs about $2,000 per year, was also found to reduce body weight by slowing down how quickly food moves through the body, which gives a person the feeling of being fuller longer.

The researchers write that there are few treatments available for severely obese children outside of lifestyle changes and surgery, and they wanted to see if the weight loss seen in adults would also happen in children.

For the new study, Kelly, who also works at Amplatz Children’s Hospital, and his colleagues recruited severely obese participants between 12 and 19 years old from around Minnesota, and separated them into two groups.

Between 4 percent and 6 percent of American youths under 18 years of age are severely obese, according to the authors, who published their study in JAMA Pediatrics on Monday.

Severe obesity in children is classified as a body mass index (BMI), a measurement of weight in relation to height, of 35 or more on the adult scale. That’s the BMI of a 12-year-old girl who is five feet tall and 155 pounds.

To read the complete article…..Click here