Danish BSc thesis tops The Lancet's most wanted list - 07.02.2008

A Danish student from Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Copenhagen, discovered a dangerous side effect to the weight-loss drug Rimonabant. The discovery was published in an article in The Lancet that has become the prestigious medical journal’s most downloaded article in four consecutive issues in November ‘07.  

Pernelle Kruse Kristensen is a student of Clinical Nutrition at the Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Copenhagen. During her traineeship, she discovered that patients who take the medical drug Rimonabant run a risk of severe depression. The discovery led to a BSc thesis with analyses that subsequently have aroused interest among researchers all over the world, including Professor Philip Mitchell and Professor Margaret Morris from University of New South Wales, Australia:

- These findings are especially striking since those with a history of significant depression or other psychiatric illnesses had been excluded before study entry, they say.

 

Arne Astrup, professor and Head of Department at Department of Human Nutrition at the Faculty of Life Sciences, who helped edit and develop the findings, is also excited: - The discovery provides a strong example that already as a BSc degree student it is possible to have your research results published globally where they can really make a difference, he says, and adds that it is encouraging that so many people all over the world have shown an interest in the discovery.

In November, The Lancet, one of the world’s most influential medical journals, published Pernelle Kruse Kristensen’s discovery which had been prepared in cooperation with Professor Arne Astrup and Robin Christensen, MSc in Human Nutrition, from the Parker Institute, Frederiksberg Hospital, Denmark. It is now globally the most downloaded article from The Lancet’s four issues in November 07.

 

Further information is available from Prof Arne Astrup at or Pernelle Kruse Kristensen at or Press Officer Katherina Ludvigsen at klu@life.dk