Orexigen, a San Diego based pharmaceutical company, announced on Monday that a new drug designed to help patients overcome obesity had passed three clinical trials and was now one step closer to FDA approval.

Contrave combines buproprion and naltrexone, two drugs used to combat a variety of mental afflictions such as depression and addiction, to reduce food cravings in obese patients.  Instead of attempting to create feelings of fullness the drug works to curve the desire to eat simply as a reward or to feel better.

As much as we here at ShrinkGeek are advocates of the “Eat Drink and Exercise” way of living I have to admit that this particular drug has potential.  There don’t appear to be any unfortunate side effects like the drug Alli (you’ll have to pardon me if I don’t think that losing weight is worth having to carry around spare underwear), and when combined with a sensible diet and exercise I think the benefits could be significant.

If the drug is approved in 2010 like the manufactuer is hoping it will be interesting to see what kind of impact it has on the weight loss industry.   One of the reasons that so many diets and medical weight loss aids fail is due to the fact that they do not address the psychological aspect of being overweight.  Up until this point there hasn’t been ANY kind of weight loss miracle that will prevent you from putting on weight if you consistently made a habit of drowning your sorrows in “bad” food.  A drug that could help those of us who have times in our lives when the only thing that makes us feel good is eating could be just what the doctor ordered.