Drug Therapy in Obese Adolescents

Background : The behavior and dietary treatments are not so successful for extremely obese adolescents. Therefore, using drugs to treat extremely obese children and adolescents are among the modern approaches. This research aims to study the pharmaceutical interventions performed for treatment of obese children.
Materials and Methods : The strategy of research was using of key words ‘obesity’, ‘adolescence’, ‘treatment’ and ‘anti-obesity drugs’ were searched in websites of PubMed, Iranian Medical Digital Library, SID, Iran Medex, Magiran. This study reviewed all the available published papers in English and Farsi languages during 2000-2010. The Criteria for exclusion was The papers that had been published on interventions and treatment of eating disorders, type II diabetes or the obesity caused by the secondary syndromes.
Results : Twelve papers were found as short-term clinical trials and/or long-term follow-ups. In these studies, the positive effects of ‘sibutramine’ in some studies are shown although some other side effects are reported as well. A significant weight-loss had been reported on ‘orlistat’ medicine, but digestive complications had been observed as well. None of the studies had followed up patients for more than one year. Apparently, ‘Metformin’ requires further studies.
Conclusion : The FDA has only approved ‘sibutramine’ and ‘orlistat’ drugs. But side effects of long-term these drugs have already been unknown. However, it seems that ‘orlistat’ is applied for ≥12-year-old children and ‘sibutramine’ for ≥ 16-year-old children.