Dr Nick Finer, consultant in obesity medicine at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, who was involved in the study on diabetic patients, said the drug “could be a major advance in the management, not just of obesity, but of the risk factors of obesity”.

He said other studies had shown people to be at risk of premature death from obesity and smoking, and said of the Rimonabant trials: “We are excited for several reasons. One is the trial has given superb results in terms of weight loss.

“Two, it actually incredibly closely mirrors the result of an earlier trial of people who had lipid disorders.” Lipid disorders are abnormal levels of cholesterol in the blood that put men and women at risk for heart disease.

“Three, this information about the effects of the drug performing independent of weight loss in improving HDL cholesterol by about 25% – that is a huge increase and that is something we don’t have drugs for at the moment.

“It is a major cardiovascular risk factor we are not very good at treating and there are other things as well.

“It is looking exciting, and I think not only will it be a very useful treatment for patients, but I think it has the potential for really changing the focus away from obesity being lifestyle to really placing it where it should be: at the heart of metabolic and cardiovascular risk.”

Dr Finer said he thought the drug would be useful in the first instance for people who ran a high risk of heart disease of strokes and who had not succeeded in dieting.

"It is looking exciting, and I think not only will it be a very useful treatment for patients, but I think it has the potential for changing the focus away from obesity being lifestyle to place it where it should be: at the heart of metabolic and cardiovascular risk."

He added: "It is not true to say people who are obese have no will power. My patients have lost 10 times more weight than other people but they can not keep it off."

Dr Finer said that reducing weight meant reducing heart disease and diabetes. "I do not think this drug will be some sort of short-term fix. It is like cholesterol and blood pressure pills; it is the kind of drug people might be taking long term."

Source: The Guardian, The Scotsman, Press Associaton, August 29, 2004