appetite

For the past month I've been participating in a drug trial.

It's a test for a type of seratonin agonist which is supposed to target the areas of the brain responsible for hunger, appetite, and food cravings.

Now that the trial is over, I want to comment upon what I experienced, in case this drug is ever on the market.

I never lost weight.

However, I did lose interest in food as an emotional attachment. Food became irritating and problematic to me. I didn't enjoy food as much as I once did. And as the primary cook in the household, I became more irritating to live with. I needed to eat, and did the cooking, but I didn't like the idea of food. You can see the problems which developed.

However, I was as hungry as I ever was.

I needed to eat food, I just didn't enjoy it as much.

Appetites in general became much less enjoyable or demanding, run with the implications of that as you will.

I can see that this type of drug could possibly help someone who has an emotional attachment to food, but that doesn't seem to be my problem.

One nice thing about participating in a drug trial is that you get a really incredibly thorough medical checkup.

I've learned that I'm very healthy except that my cholesterol is high. However, every other blood test records that I am very, very healthy, including endocrine and liver functions.
Every week I got three pages of detailed medical analyses, which all suggested that I'm darned healthy. Not just medically healthy, but healthy enough to be considered for medical experiments, which is *Damned Healthy*. New tests seem to say that in the French high cholesterol happens but heart problems don't. Needless to say I'll be closely following the research in this area, while still trying to do the common-sense level stuff to reduce it.

I do eat a lot of dairy cholesterol, butter and cream. I almost never eat red meat. My blood pressure is low. I don't drink or smoke anymore, excepting rare lapses.

Next time I have a checkup, I'm asking about these new tests which seem to more accurately reflect heart congestion than just cholesterol.

This study did include thorough heart analysis, electro cardiograms and echo cardiograms. Both suggest that my heart is quite healthy, I'm happy to report.

I have no idea whether I should be worried, but I'm going to excercise more regardless, because I know I don't do that enough. Then we'll see in a year.