An appetite-suppressing injection or even chewing gum could one day be used to tackle Britain’s obesity problem.

Scientists have been given funding to develop a treatment to help clinically obese patients to “feel full” and to eat less.

The injection would contain a naturally occurring hormone that curbs appetite and is often lacking in overweight people. Within a decade the injection could provide the first effective treatment for obesity, which contributes to about 1,300 deaths a week in Britain, the scientists say.

The research, announced today, is among the first projects to benefit from a £91 million scheme by the Wellcome Trust to fund new medicines. It promises to be safer and more effective than present treatments, which culminate in drastic “stomach- stapling” operations.

The hormone, pancreatic polypeptide (PP), is normally released from the small intestine as food is consumed, signalling to the brain that the body has had enough. In preliminary trials, an intravenous infusion that boosted levels of the hormone led to a big reduction in appetite among healthy volunteers.

Thirty-five healthy volunteers who were given the PP treatment consumed fewer calories, with the effect lasting for about 24 hours. Steve Bloom, who led the research at Imperial College and Hammersmith Hospital, London, said: “Even a 1 per cent reduction in appetite could lead to significant weight loss over a year.”

Professor Bloom has received a grant of £2.3 million to develop the drug as a longer-lasting weekly injection. Other ways to administer the hormone could include a pump or even chewing gum, he said.

Obesity is thought to double the risk of almost all kinds of cancer and also heart-related illness such as strokes and heart disease, and diabetes.

• Scottish health chiefs have had to to kit out a fleet of ambulances with lifting gear to deal with obese patients. More than £100,000 has been spent on reinforced chairs and wheelchairs in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen. Colin Waine, the chairman of the National Obesity Forum, said: “A quarter of the NHS budget will be spent on Type II diabetes by 2020 if things carry on as they are.”

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