Viagra as Diet Pill? One Day, Perhaps

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/science/viagra-as-diet-pill.html?smid=re-share

by youngerdryas • 13 years ago

52 47 13 years ago

nytimes.com

fluidcruft• 13 years ago

Now, all they have to get it to do is cause tan skin and it's the trifecta.

mmagin• 13 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanotan_II

ginko• 13 years ago

Considering the large quantities of Viagra some people are already taking on a regular basis, shouldn't any weight loss effects in humans been noticed by now?

Ralz• 13 years ago

This explains all the ripped 60 year olds at my gym

bitwize3• 13 years ago

There's a new fad called Cenegenics which is basically a bodybuilding regimen, replete with steroids given under the rubric of "hormone replacement", for old men. They're running television ads featuring a shredded-looking 72-year-old doctor.

spindritf• 13 years ago

Maybe users ascribed weight loss to increased... activity.

mistercow2• 13 years ago

As far as I can tell, the maximum approved daily dose of Viagra is 100mg. If a 150 lb man takes that, you're looking at about 1.5 mg/kg/day, which is an eighth of what they gave the rats in this study. If I'm reading this other study (http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.1080/004982599238687) correctly, we could probably roughly triple the equivalent dose in rats to account for their more rapid clearance of sildenafil. So we're still looking at 2-3 times a large dose for humans, taken over an extended period of time.

So we can reason right off the bat that this is an atypical use case. Glancing at experience reports on the internet, it appears pretty rare for people to exceed 100 mg doses, and even rarer for them to keep using it day after day for a week at a time. The one segment of the population we might expect to approach the level of usage tested in this study would be male porn stars. That's a group that is probably concerned more with building muscle than losing weight, so it seems unlikely that they'd be in a position to notice that particular effect.

Gatsky• 13 years ago

There are studies of high dose chronic viagra use in patients with pulmonary arterial hupertension. The high dose groups in these studies received 240mg a day. I've had a brief look at the reported outcomes and there is no data on weightloss. This paediatric study of the same condition mentions that one patient withdrew due to weightloss: (http://m.circ.ahajournals.org/content/125/2/324.long)

Of course, these patients are quite unwell, aren't trying to lose weight, and if sildenafil made their condition better might have had a better appetite and eaten more, so it's hard to draw too many conclusions.

throwaway54-762• 13 years ago

Yeah, if you're a human male and consuming 200-300 mg of sildenafil daily, you are likely going to see other issues: both health (priapism), and social (uh, see: priapism).

vaadu• 13 years ago

Pfizer will use this as a way to extend their patents.

mistercow2• 13 years ago

My understanding was that one of the criteria for a method-of-use extension is that the patent must not have previously been extended. Since Viagra has already been extended to 2020, I don't think it is eligible for another extension.

danso• 13 years ago

Some background. In the U.S., there are several characteristics that makes a drug something that the FDA approves:

1) The actual chemical makeup of the drug 2) The dosage of the drug 3) The method of administration for the drug 4. What the drug is intended to treat

Therefore, Pfizer can get separate approvals for Viagra if they release 100 mg and 200mg doses. They get separate approvals if the drug is administered through pill or through injection. And they get separate approvals for Viagra if, in one case, Viagra is used to treat erectile dysfunction, and in the other, used to treat, say, ulcers.

So, AFAIK, Pfizer can continue making money off of Viagra for this new intended use, if the FDA approves of it. However, I believe (talking from just layman's interpretation here), that this doesn't preclude someone getting a generic approved for erectile dysfunction, after Pfizer's exclusivity period has run out for that particular intended treatment.

edit: This is a different issue than when they trivially modify the formulation of a drug in order to delay the possibility of a generic use. The regulations are a bit convoluted so take everything I wrote here with a grain of salt. But tl;dr: there's more to an "approved" product than just chemical formulation.

refurb• 13 years ago

You are correct.

If Pfizer conducted clinical trials and got Viagra approved for a new indication, they could extend their exclusivity two different ways: either through a use patent or through market exclusivity as provide by the FDA.

However, if their patent is around the use of the drug, i.e. erectile dysfunction and that patent runs out, another company could make a generic. That company would not be able to promote the drug for the new indication, but doctors would know the two were the same and could prescribe the generic.

rsheridan6• 13 years ago

It really shouldn't matter too much. FDA approved indications matter for getting insurance to pay for a drug. Insurance generally doesn't pay for erectile dysfunction drugs or weight loss drugs. The only indication for Viagra (or Revatio, rather, which is the same drug with a different brand name and different indications) that insurance pays for is pulmonary arterial hypertension. Revatio is already generic in the US.

The sensible thing to do would be to just use generic Revatio whenever you want sildenafil (generic name of Viagra and Revatio), regardless of the reason you want it.

w1ntermute• 13 years ago

I wonder if the researchers at the University of Bonn were funded by Pfizer.

return0• 13 years ago

This Just In: "Average content size of spam emails expected to double"

driverdan• 13 years ago

This is pretty interesting research but how this plays out in humans could be very different. Mice have significantly more "brown" fat than humans. I could see that playing a role in the rate of conversion. Anyone with more knowledge of the topic care to comment?

gz5• 13 years ago

can't wait to see the Argaiv ads w/ the skinny actors smiling away and the low voice at the end warning us that our partners need to know about the side effects, perhaps talking just a bit slower than the normal disclaimers, and with a few more select adjectives about the side effect experience.

jondiggsit• 13 years ago

The obese male population in America is about to get a whole lot more gross

matznerd• 13 years ago

pssst, for those of you not into nootropics... you can take artichoke extract, which also inhibits phosphodiesterase 5 (PDE5) and elevates cGMP. there are also studies showing that inhibiting this pathway can also restore cognitive function...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21627640#

ksherlock• 13 years ago

The NY Times better be careful. Peter Gleason, MD, committed suicide after the FDA/DOJ destroyed his career for discussing off-label usages of prescription drugs.

http://www.justice.gov/usao/nye/pr/2006/2006apr05.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732398150457817...

pstuart2• 13 years ago

Ugh. The WSJ article is behind a paywall, but from skimming the DOJ page it seems he was prescribing GHB, a drug that is considered to be safer than alcohol.

Think of the children! /s

brianchu• 13 years ago

There are aspects of GHB that are most certainly more dangerous than alcohol. It is much easier to overdose on GHB - several grams will do it. GHB is often used as a recreational drug which explains why it is a controlled substance. Combining it with alcohol can be particularly risky/fatal. I first heard of GHB, for example, in high school, because it's a common date rape drug.

saraid216• 13 years ago

> The WSJ article is behind a paywall

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%...

atdrummond5• 13 years ago

Ursolic acid (http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...) show promise of similar effects, although through a different mechanism of action.

"As a result, ursolic acid increased skeletal muscle mass, fast and slow muscle fiber size, grip strength and exercise capacity. Interestingly, ursolic acid also increased brown fat, a tissue that shares developmental origins with skeletal muscle. Consistent with increased skeletal muscle and brown fat, ursolic acid increased energy expenditure, leading to reduced obesity, improved glucose tolerance and decreased hepatic steatosis."

Patrick Arnold, the creator of "The Clear" and other designer steroids used by BALCO, currently produces an ursolic acid transdermal that many people claim to have been extremely effective for weight loss.

nwzpaperman4• 13 years ago

PA is a brilliant guy that loves human performance and tinkering with the programming of the human body to make it better. HN is just a cold audience for this type of content.

Keep those noses up y'all!

edit - "...programming with the human body to optimize system performance."

atdrummond5• 13 years ago

Absolutely. Not only that but he regularly posts on forums and responds to e-mails, even those with the most basic of questions.

He's working on a few cognitive products that might interest HN a bit more.

cjensen• 13 years ago

So a guy "fed the drug to mice for seven days" and discovered "white fat cells ... were being converted ... at a higher rate than usual."

I give this study a zero for effort. Would it have killed them to study this for longer? Where's my control group that is heavier at the end of the study?

Viagra as Diet Pill? One Day, Perhaps

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