If you have tried exercise and diet to lose belly fat without success, take heart. There may be help from pharmaceuticals in your future!

A weight-loss medication – sibutramine (Meridia) was approved in 1997. Studies have shown that the drug’s greatest effects are on visceral fat – the evil kind of belly fat.

Hormone replacement therapy during menopause may help you from developing more visceral belly fat. Estrogen, production of which declines during menopause, causes fat to be stored in the buttocks, thighs, and hips in women. During menopause, the fat starts getting stored around their waists.

The Harvard Medical School Publication “Abdominal Fat and What to do About it” explains it better: “Hormones are also involved. At menopause, estrogen production decreases and the ratio of androgen (male hormones present in small amounts in women) to estrogen increases — a shift that’s been linked in some studies to increased abdominal fat after menopause. Some researchers suspect that the drop in estrogen levels at menopause is also linked to increased levels of cortisol, a stress hormone that promotes the accumulation of abdominal fat.”

An obesity drug called Rimonabant (Acomplia in Europe where it is approved, Zimulti in the US where it is NOT yet FDA approved) was the first of a new class of drugs that block a receptor in the brain that increases appetite. Acomplia has been shown to modestly reduce the accumulation of fat at the waist. It is recommended for folks with type 2 diabetes with large waists.

It was thought that increasing levels of a hormone Because levels of the hormone dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) might help reverse the age related tendancy to that well know ‘middle aged spread. It is turned into testosterone and estrogen in the body. But, the results of a two-year randomized trial published in the Oct. 19, 2006, New England Journal of Medicine showed that DHEA had no effect on aging markers, including body-composition measurements, in women and men ages 60 and over.

Sources

•  Discover Magazine: http://discovermagazine.com/2007/feb/visceral-fat/article_view?b_start:int=1&-C=
• Drug Information Online: http://www.drugs.com/acomplia.html