**A Promising Weight-Loss Aid Emerges: Diabetes Drugs** **Subjects in one study lost up to 22.5% of their body weight after nearly 18 months of treatment** **By Peter Loftus, The Wall Street Journal, June 21, 2022**
**...** **Eli Lilly and Co., Novo Nordisk A/S and others have begun selling or are testing drugs that help treat both conditions, which often overlap in individuals and together affect hundreds of millions of people globally.**
**The drugs are effective for both diabetes and obesity because they promote production of hormones in the body that tell people they are full after eating and stimulate insulin secretion, in turn lowering blood-sugar levels, doctors and the companies say....**
**Doctors say the dual-purpose drugs appear to be among the most effective and safest pharmaceutical options for people who are overweight or obese. ...The advances could mean big sales for drugmakers....** [end quote]
These drugs have already been approved for treatment of diabetes. Doctors could prescribe them off-label for treatment of obesity, but to get full FDA approval they will need more testing.
They only work when they are taken continuously. Patients gain the weight back if the drug is discontinued.
The drugs are quite expensive. The drugs will be highly profitable if they are approved. So far, they are not covered by Medicare or many insurance policies. But once they are approved they will have an enormous potential customer base. More than 40% of American adults, or about 100 million, meet the criteria for obesity of a body-mass index of 30 and above.
These drugs have already been approved for treatment of diabetes. Doctors could prescribe them off-label for treatment of obesity, but to get full FDA approval they will need more testing.
They only work when they are taken continuously. Patients gain the weight back if the drug is discontinued.
The drugs are quite expensive. The drugs will be highly profitable if they are approved. So far, they are not covered by Medicare or many insurance policies. But once they are approved they will have an enormous potential customer base. More than 40% of American adults, or about 100 million, meet the criteria for obesity of a body-mass index of 30 and above.
Wouldn’t it be better to just eat a healthier diet? Wouldn’t it be better to eat less junk food and more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and probiotic foods? This would address not only obesity but also diabetes and many other health issues. Japan is an example of a fully industrialized society with one of the world’s lowest obesity rates.
The dysfunctional American food system needs to be overhauled. So much of the farmland used for growing corn for high fructose corn syrup could instead be used for growing varieties of fruit and vegetable crops. Crop rotation would reduce the need for fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides. (The benefits have been known for thousands of years. Monocrop farming ensures that the ancients are turning over in their graves.)
There’s something wrong when there are more places to buy junk food than real food. There are too many food deserts where junk food is widely available but real food is scarce and exotic. It should be the other way around.
It’s a bit more complicated than that. Here’s a better link…in that you don’t get blocked out of the reading material by the WSJ ad and subscription solicitation…
The link to the abstract of the actual study is there also.
The weight loss capabilities appear to come from the drug’s ability to stimulate satiety hormones rather than simulated exercise (which the fat-burner marketers would have you believe is a thing). This type of treatment would only work in a patient who has some degree of commitment to weight loss and accepts the need to eat less…but for whatever reason, cannot do that for a meaningful amount of time. Don’t understand it myself…or, for that matter how anyone gains substantial amounts of weight in the first place…but I can recognise it as a reality for a good many.
Me, I’d sooner pony up the $$$bucks for a gym membership or Peloton subscription than get free access to these but, there you go…
Wouldn’t it be better to just eat a healthier diet?
Well, yeah…just like it’s better to swim rather than let yourself drown. Sometimes it’s a bit more complicated than that…as you’re very well aware!
You’ve posted on many occasions on the H&N board that you’re unable to control your appetite of the winter months, with a consequent sizable weight gain, right? Your discovery of “healthy eating” over the Covid pandemic hasn’t tamed that very much from your accounts on that board.
Intercst is right. People want to keep all their unhealthy habits and take a pill to fix everything.
Supplementation can easily fix Vitamin D3, selenium, and iodine deficiencies. No massive overhaul of the dysfunctional food system is required. However, most people aren’t taking these supplements.
Just one Brazil nut per day provides ample selenium. Cheap selenium supplements exist for those who lack access to Brazil nuts, have a nut allergy or sensitivity, or have simply run out of Brazil nuts.
I take a kelp supplement, because very few foods have it.
I take a Vitamin D3 supplement, because foods have far too little to matter, and it’s not always possible to get Vitamin D from the sun. The conditions that make it possible to get Vitamin D from the sun also make it possible to get sunburned or develop skin cancer. I used to skip the Vitamin D3 supplementation in summer, but not anymore. Relying on the sun for Vitamin D would mean having to thread the needle between too little and too much.
In 2012 my BIl an endocrinologist in Boston discussed medications for type 2 diabetes as I had crossed over into diabetes. The meds broke down at that time into two groups. There was Metformin the old generic that works extremely well with no major side effects save one in 30000 people can not take it, and then the other newer drugs with tons of drug reps saying they are fantastic. The side effects though in the second group are common and bad.
Now ten years later another new drug. I can not speak to this drug, but I will say be very careful to talk to your doctor about the side effects.
Note to other posters I have worked on my diet and lost 50 lbs keeping it off for a year now. But I am rare. The food system is not at all broken. People need to manage their lives. That is very difficult for the best of us. You either strive for that in many ways over time or you fail here and there like everyone else and your bad failures bring you down. Taking vitamins is a meaningless gesture in comparison.
I take a Vitamin D3 supplement, because foods have far too little to matter, and it’s not always possible to get Vitamin D from the sun. The conditions that make it possible to get Vitamin D from the sun also make it possible to get sunburned or develop skin cancer. I used to skip the Vitamin D3 supplementation in summer, but not anymore. Relying on the sun for Vitamin D would mean having to thread the needle between too little and too much.
It is also best to have a Vit D level checked. Some people just don’t absorb it that well. My brother is outdoors all the time, so plenty of sun exposure, eats a relatively balanced diet and drinks a fair amount of milk which has been fortified with Vit D. And yet his level is below normal. So he is now on a supplement.
Back to the original topic, it has been known for years that metformin (an oral treatment for diabetes) causes weight loss in non-diabetics. Not as dramatic as these new drugs, but cheap. And unfortunately, USAisians want the answer from a pill instead of a little extra work.