NEW ORLEANS -- The biggest test yet of an experimental new diet pill found that people not only lost weight but kept it off for two years, longer than any other diet drug has been able to achieve, scientists reported Tuesday.

In tests on more than 3,000 people throughout the United States and Canada, those who were given the higher of two doses of the drug lost more than 5 percent of their initial body weight, and a third of them lost more than 10 percent.

"They achieved and maintained a weight loss of 19 pounds as compared to 5.1 pounds in the placebo group," said Dr. F-Xavier Pi-Sunyer of Columbia University in New York, who led the study and presented results at an American Heart Association conference.

Those who got the lower dose fared just slightly better than those given fake pills. About a third of them lost 5 percent of their weight and about one-fifth lost 10 percent.

The drug's maker, the French pharmaceutical firm Sanofi-Aventis, has named the drug Acomplia and plans to seek federal approval for it next year.

Targets craving

It's the first aimed at blocking the "pleasure center" of the brain and interfering with the cycle of craving and satisfaction that drives many compulsive behaviors and addictions.

"What we have here now is essentially a brand new mechanism to treat an epidemic of staggering progression," said Dr. Douglas Greene, vice president of regulatory affairs for Sanofi-Aventis.

"The results are very encouraging. The safety profile looks good. It seems like people tolerate the medication," said Dr. Sidney C. Smith Jr., a University of North Carolina cardiologist who had no role in the study.

"It would be nice if this could be used as a jump-start" to get people to permanently change lifestyle habits so they didn't have to depend on a drug for the benefits, he said. "The more we can change behavior and modify risk factors in that manner, the better."