In the not too distant future, you may find a solution for your overeating and weight gain right at the end of your nose.

A pharmaceutical company near Boston will begin testing in 2007 a nasal spray to see if it blocks the ability to smell and taste in humans. Lab rats on the spray enjoyed a 20-percent weight loss, the firm's president said.

Compellis Pharmaceuticals of Cambridge, Mass., won a patient in December for the nose spray, which could hit the market in 2010 and cost $500 to $1,000 a year, if the human tests are as successful as the lab tests with rodents.

"The pleasurable effect of eating is all stimulated by smell and taste," Christopher Adams, the company's founder and chief executive, told Reuters. "The premise is that olfactory activity that controls both smell and taste is a trigger and a feedback mechanism to eat.

"If you have some kind of reduced sense of smell or taste, you tend to eat less."

'Uncontrollable urge' 

Adams said he is encouraged that the lab tests showed the rats shed the weight over a mere 14 days.

"Obese patients often describe an uncontrollable urge to eat foods triggered by the appealing aromas of food," he said, in a company statement. "This study clearly shows that by taking away the appealing aromas of food in the earliest stages of olfactory perception reduces appetite and causes people to reduce their food intake.

Adams said obesity is caused by many factors, including uncontrolled eating behaviors, fat storage, calorie intake and expenditure, and genetic and psychological influences.

So far, targeting fat metabolism and storage or understanding genetic influences have yielded inadequate results. Controlling the intake of food by suppressing appetite appears the most effective approach, he added.

"Compellis has developed a therapy that satisfies the critical need for better drugs that intervene in the processes of obesity and related disorders, such as diabetes and hypertension. It is a non-invasive therapy that will make a dramatic impact on the treatment of obesity."

Do more than use spray

But one observer said if the spray does indeed become available, overweight users should also change their lifestyles to get the most benefit.

"There are a lot of reasons why obesity exists, and it's not always a case of food addiction," James Zervios, a spokesman for the Obesity Action Coalition in Tampa, Fla., told Reuters. "People still need to eat. Every time they get hungry, I don't think they could just use the spray.

"People need to be taught what are the better foods to eat, what's high on protein, what's low on fat."

Source: Compellis Pharmaceuticals, Reuters

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