Two patients taking an anti-obesity drug in Britain have died and more than 200 others have suffered suspected adverse reactions, health officials said yesterday. Officials and the manufacturer stressed that the patients' medical conditions could have been responsible for the deaths, one of which was only two days after starting on Reductil, also known as sibutramine.Doctors have given official notification of 212 suspected adverse reactions to the drug, including the two deaths, since it was licensed in Britain in July last year, the department said. However, if they are unwell or concerned they should speak to their doctor," it said.The drug manufacturer, Abbott Laboratories, said that 8.6 million people had used sibutramine-based drugs since 1997 and it was not aware of any substantial change to the drug's risk-benefit profile.A spokesman for the firm said both the British patients who died had severe heart disease. One had diabetes and a thyroid problem and had died two days after starting on Reductil.The second had been on the drug for four months and had been taken off it five days before dying from a heart attack.There have been a total of 34 deaths notified worldwide since Reductil was launched in 1997. Heart disease and high blood pressure are listed as reasons for not prescribing the drug to patients.But a report in the Consumers' Association's Drugs and Therapeutics Bulletin last year warned that there were too many potential side-effects to make it worth prescribing..

The new Eurostar terminal at St Pancras station is the locomotive pulling the regeneration of the entire King's Cross area. This downtrodden patch faces a radical transformation, and property prices in some areas have already soared, although completion is more than a decade away. A considerable amount of social and affordable housing is also being planned.If construction runs to schedule, a rail link will open between the Channel Tunnel and Fawkham Junction in north Kent next year, and four years later the line will reach St Pancras. Final completion is not expected until 2015, however.Already, "property demand is high and increasing," says Liam Sullivan of APS Estates. "Many people want to buy investment flats, but owners are holding on for the same reason, and so now we have a lack of property I hate to predict where prices will go.

After I thought prices had peaked two years ago, they rose an additional 25 per cent. Over the past five years prices have doubled, and even tripled in some spots."Peter Juster, of Warman's estate agency, says: "The area will have 10,000 more people in 10 years, and many will have to use Caledonian Road's Tube station. When the site is fully developed, King's Cross and Caledonian Road will have new identities. Now it is just a messy hole in the ground, but long-term it'll look the business."The capital has more than its share of mainline stations, but King's Cross and St Pancras are first among equals.

"Waterloo is convenient, but primarily for Londoners," Mr Juster says. "Paddington will benefit from the link to Heathrow, but King's Cross is getting new rail lines to the north, and the new station here will be the key rail link to France for the whole of the UK."The Low-downTransport New arrivals include a station on the North London Line, near York Way, and a Thameslink station in addition to the international high-speed terminus at St Pancras. King's Cross and St Pancras Underground stations will get new ticket halls.PricesA three-bedroom, former local authority flat selling for £150,000 on one estate may cost only £100,000 on another nearby. On Balfe Street, between Euston Road and the canal, APS sold a handsome two-bedroom Grade II-listed maisonette for £255,000.PropertiesRadiating out from noisy, grimy Caledonian Road are many pleasant tree-lined streets lined with Georgian and Victorian homes. Somers Town, west of St Pancras station, also has numerous period properties which are well worth a look.Lofty A 2,425-sq ft loft apartment with terrace in York Central, on York Way, is selling for £875,000, with annual service charges of about £2,200, via Clerkenwell-based Hurford Salvi Carr. A one-third share of the lease on a one-bed balcony flat in Battlebridge Court adjacent to the Regent's Canal is selling for £55,000; housing association rent is £288 per month.If u cn rd xxxAn adult bookshop on Caledonian Road pays rent of £9,500 per year. Above are four studio flats generating rents of nearly £30,000 per year.