SCIENTISTS have successfully tested a hormone-based treatment that can “switch off” a person’s appetite and enable obese people to lose more than 5lb every month.

The therapy, which is administered as an injection, works by tricking the patient’s mind into believing that his or her stomach is full. It has been developed by a team of scientists at Imperial College London who claim that it will represent a “step change” in the treatment of the severely overweight.

The developers of the therapy are, however, worried that the drug might be so effective that slimmers will use it to excess in search of the perfect figure.

“You couldn’t let young girls of average weight or an anorexic use this because it literally takes your appetite away,” said Steve Bloom, professor of medicine at Imperial College and leader of the research team.

Dr David Haslam, chairman of the National Obesity Forum, gave the development a cautious welcome. “It is far too early to herald it as a miracle cure but I’m very interested to hear more about this treatment and at the very least it has the potential to become a tool in our armoury,” he said.

Obesity is now regarded as a national problem with 24m adults classified as either overweight or obese, according to a recent health select committee report. If current trends continue, more than 20% of boys and 30% of girls will be classed as obese by 2020. The Department of Health estimates the cost of treating fat patients at £3.9 billion a year.

The new drug appears to remove weight at a constant rate month after month, in contrast to existing anti-obesity drugs which take off a maximum of between 6lb and 11lb.

Although this maximum loss helps to reduce the risk that patients may contract diabetes or a heart condition, it also leaves them frustrated that they are not able to shed more fat. In addition, patients usually regain some or all of the weight when they stop taking the drugs.

The only long-term solution is major surgery to reduce the size of the stomach, which can cut weight by 50%. This procedure is on the increase but is costly and invasive. Although pacemaker devices have been developed that also trick the brain into thinking the stomach is full, they too involve surgery.

Bloom and his team developed the new medicine after identifying a hormone called oxyntomodulin as a “switch” that regulates appetite.

They discovered that patients who had undergone surgery to reduce the size of their gut produced more oxyntomodulin after the operation. The patients were physically unable to eat as much — yet their stomachs were sending stronger signals to the brain that they were full.

“There has been so much that we needed to learn about the human body and obesity,” said Bloom. “Why do we stop feeling hungry after eating lunch? Something is switching off the appetite after eating. What we’ve done is found that switch.”

During trials for the new drug, patients injected themselves with a small dose of the hormone three times a day, 30 minutes before each meal, for four weeks. Some of the 26 patients were given placebo injections. The patients also had their diet and exercise levels fixed to ensure that there were no other factors that could affect their weight loss.

At the end of the trial the patients who received oxyntomodulin lost 5½lb compared with 1lb lost by those who received the placebo injection.

However, research at Imperial College using animals has pushed the potential of the drug further and shown that the injections can reduce appetite to almost nothing.

The Imperial team is now trying to secure funding for a larger trial. The treatment could still take five or six years before it is available on prescription in Britain.

Researchers are also looking at ways of administering the hormone in a more patient-friendly way. Initial work will focus on reducing the number of injections required to one a day and developing a way of taking it orally.

This could enable it to be used as a “lifestyle” drug taken in modest quantities by those seeking to control their weight such as sportsmen like Shane Warne and models such as Sophie Dahl.

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