IT could be the answer to many women's prayers - not to mention men's.
A wonder pill has been developed which not only boosts a female's sex drive, but helps her lose weight at the same time.
So far it has been tested only on shrews and monkeys, but scientists believe humans could be taking it within a decade.
Professor Robert Millar discovered the double benefit while developing a hormone to treat loss of libido, a problem which affects millions of women.
During tests on animals, he found that as well as displaying a greater keenness for sex, they also seemed less interested in food.
Female musk shrews and marmosets were injected with the Type 2 Gonadotropin-releasing hormone and displayed classic mating behaviour towards their male counterparts.
In the shrews, this was shown by "rump presentation and tail wagging", while the monkeys began "tongue flicking and eyebrow raising", said the professor.
But the laboratory animals also ate significantly less than usual. In some cases their daily intake was cut by a third.
Professor Millar, director of the Human Reproductive Sciences Unit at the Medical Research Council in Edinburgh, said: "This hormone is distributed in the brain in areas that we suspect affect reproductive behaviour.
"The musk shrew is a very primitive ancestor of primates and when given to the females they displayed reproductive behaviour, and the males would mate with them."
The professor believes women given the hormone would see a similar boost to their sex drive and suppressing of appetite.
He is now working on reproducing it in the form of a pill, which could prove extremely profitable given the amount of interest pharmaceutical companies have shown in enhancing libido.
He said: "It is considered a major pharmaceutical endeavour to address the area of libido. So the next stage is to produce a drug that simulates the actions of this hormone.
"It is most likely that we will do it in partnership with a pharmaceutical firm. It could be available to women within ten years."
Although a number of drug treatments are already on the market aimed at treating obesity and sexual dysfunction, Professor Millar believes his discovery could lead to the first "lifestyle drug" that works on the sex drive and the appetite.
He suspects a pill which simulates the hormone could also work for men, but as yet he has not carried out any tests on male animals.
Dr Lesley Perman-Kerr, a chartered psychologist, said women would be more likely to take the pill to suppress their appetite than to increase their sex drive.
"Some women have problems specific to libido, but often if they go off sex, it's more to do with their relationship than with their level of libido," he said.
"In my experience, when couples come to me and they are not having sex, the last thing they want to do is examine their relationship. They want to believe that it's nothing to do with their relationship.
"So it may be that women would take the pill when they have a good sex life and they want to enhance it."
