Ever wished you could wash down that pizza, cheesecake and beer with a magic pill to make it all vanish from your waistline?

Too good to be true? Chances are it is, but the prospect may be only a few years away, say Australian scientists doing research on a drug to simulate the effect of exercise, a move sure to excite couch potatoes the world over.

"I've loosely called it the vanity drug," said Bruce Kemp, senior research fellow at St. Vincent's Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne.

"A lot of pharmaceutical companies are now working on this very actively," he said.

St Vincent's and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) have identified and unlocked the structure of an enzyme -- a protein that kicks off chemical reactions -- that turns off the synthesis of fat and cholesterol.

"This enzyme is activated during exercise and it accelerates your metabolism to make up for the energy deficit in your muscle that's been created by exercise," Kemp said.

"There's been international interest in the enzyme," he said.

Scientists believe the enzyme, technically known as AMP-activated protein kinase, plays a role in regulating appetite and body weight.

But those seeking six-pack abdominals would still have to pump iron as any future pill would not tone muscles, Kemp said.

"You have to do some work. There are no miracles. (The pill) will do a number of the metabolic and gene transcription events that are caused by exercise but it doesn't do everything."

Other scientists, medical experts, exercise physiologists and fitness specialists stand firm on the premise that any interference with protein kinase through drugs or other foreign agents will interfere with the body's natural metabolism. Experts say that such drug interventions will create a plethora of side effects which would increase health risks that would by far outweigh any touted benefits.

"This is just further evidence of the new lows pharmaceutical companies will stoop to for profits" said fitness specialist Susan McHilley. "That's why we have this obesity epidemic in the first place. People are not exercising enough and are continuing to consume the wrong types of foods. This type of drug initiative will only further encourage bad lifestyle habits. They (pharmaceutical companies) are still not working towards preventing obesity through fitness and proper diet but instead continue to treat the symptoms of this disease."

Most exercise physiologists and fitness experts agree that attempts at any long-term artificial enhancements of metabolic function are futile through drug intervention and that exercise will always be an absolute necessity for the human body, especially relating to disease prevention.

Reference Source 89
July 16, 2004

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