Recent advances in feeding suppressing agents: potential therapeutic strategy for the treatment of obesity

Obesity is an increasingly prevalent health problem for which no ideal treatments are available, especially for long-term maintenance of body loss. The only approved drugs are centrally acting appetite suppressants that modulate monoamine neurotransmitters in the brain. Since the discovery of leptin, and the fact it modulates neuropeptide systems in the CNS, attention has shifted from amines to peptides. Many researchers have focused on these neuropeptide systems in the CNS and their involvement in energy balance. With an effort to identify molecules involved in feeding behaviour and energy expenditure in the brain, especially in the hypothalamic nuclei, a series of novel potential targets for the development of anti-obesity agents, as well as potential drug candidates, are being given attention. Many pharmaceutical companies have large programmes directed at the development of new modulators of neuropeptide receptors, antagonists of appetite enhancing peptides and agonists of appetite suppressing peptides, including neuropeptide Y receptors and melanocortin receptors. This review covers recent targets for drug discovery of anti-obesity agents and patents focusing on the receptors.