VACCINES designed to help people give up smoking or kick a cocaine habit are already undergoing trials. And soon the first ever vaccine designed to help people lose weight will join them.
The vaccine tricks the body into making antibodies that neutralise ghrelin, a hormone released into the bloodstream by cells lining the stomach. When it reaches the brain, ghrelin triggers feelings of hunger.
But if it is intercepted by antibodies in the bloodstream, the hormone cannot activate the usual “feed me” signal. “We want to reduce the feeling of hunger,” says Claudine Blaser of Cytos Biotechnology of Zurich, Switzerland,…
