The research, being led by Professor Colin Snape in the University ™s School of Chemical, Environmental and Mining Engineering and published recently in Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry, will provide a more reliable way of detecting drug molecules in the body.

In collaboration with Dr Mark Sephton at the Open University, Professor Snape ™s research group has developed a technique called hydropyrolysis, commonly used to aid oil exploration by liberating small fragments of organic matter from petroleum rock sources. The modified process can recognise the origin of any carbon-based molecules, including fatty acids and steroids, in the body.

The type of carbon in the body ™s molecules reflects the carbon ingested as part of an athlete ™s diet. Drugs manufactured in the lab contain very different carbon, allowing the two types of molecules to be distinguished by scientific instruments.

However, previous techniques have been unable to offer a precise detection method. Professor Snape explained: "In effect, you are what you eat plus a little bit of what you might inject. In their natural form, however, the body ™s molecules are too sticky ™ for accurate measurements by our laboratory equipment."

Some methods overcome these problems but add carbon to the target molecule, irreversibly overprinting the carbon source signal ™. The research into hydropyrolysis, funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, has developed a new approach that delicately strips molecules of their sticky ™ parts but retains the carbon skeleton intact, allowing easy detection of the carbon source.

The new detection system could allow scientists to pinpoint banned substances in an athlete ™s system ” even the new designer steroid specifically manufactured to avoid detection recently uncovered by the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada).

Professor Snape added: "Our discovery of a method to produce easy to handle molecules without destroying their carbon source signal opens up the whole body ™s molecules to intense scientific scrutiny."

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Obesity has been closely linked with type 2 diabetes. In a 2000 study, 80 to 90 percent of people with type 2 diabetes are overweight. Obesity may also worsen problems associated with diabetes, including high blood sugar, high cholesterol and high blood pressure, say Norris and colleagues.

Norris says people with diabetes who are also overweight may have a harder time losing weight than non-diabetics.

Insulin therapy itself might cause weight gain, Norris says. Keeping track of a complex series of treatments for diabetes, high cholesterol and high blood pressure all complicate behavioral change aimed at weight reduction.

Recommendations by the American Diabetes Association in 2002 say that weight loss drugs may be useful in treating obesity among type 2 diabetes patients, but also note that these drugs work best in conjunction with lifestyle strategies such as low fat diets and increased exercise.

Norris and colleagues say more research is needed to find out whether weight loss drugs work better when combined with diet and exercise changes.

In general populations, drugs have been combined with various lifestyle interventions, but most [drug] trials include relatively weak lifestyle programs, perhaps in part to better reveal the medication effects, Norris says.

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