New research indicates that an extract from the Korean pine nut could be effective in treating obesity by suppressing the appetite, an expert on obesity said on Friday.

“We have a lot of new drugs that are in the pipeline and this is very encouraging,” said Denise E. Bruner, an obesity expert from the United States.

She said U.S. research showed that pinolenic acid extracted from Korean pine nut could dampen the appetite.

“They looked at a group of women who had pine nut versus a group who didn’t and they saw there’s weight loss and they felt full longer,” Bruner told Reuters on the sidelines of an anti-ageing conference in the resort island of Bali.

The levels of two hormones that act as appetite suppressors, cholecystokinin and glucagons-like peptide, increased by 65 percent and 25 percent respectively in the subjects, she said.

She also said she was encouraged by a new obesity drug produced by French company Sanofi Aventis, called Accomplia, also known as Rimonabant, that has been approved recently in the United Kingdom.

“It blocks receptors in the brain that stimulate eating, so you don’t feel hunger. This is a good agent,” she said.

Bruner said experts were also working to develop a vaccine against a virus called Adenovirus-36, which has been associated with weight gain.

She said the social cost of obesity was staggering, with the United States spending $117 billion annually in health care in this area. “This is not to mention the loss of work and loss of productivity,” she said.