2023-08-18 18:26:00
USA.- From time to time a drug appears that has the potential to change the world. Medical specialists say the latest to offer that possibility are new drugs to treat obesity: Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro and more, which may soon hit the market.
It’s early days, but there hasn’t been anything like these drugs before.
“Game changers,” said Jonathan Engel, a historian of medicine and health care policy at Baruch College in New York.
Obesity affects nearly 42 percent of American adults, and yet, Engel said, “we’ve been powerless.” Research into possible medical treatments for the condition led to failure. Pharmaceutical companies lost interest, and many executives thought, like most doctors and members of the public, that obesity was a moral failing and not a chronic disease.
While other drugs discovered in recent decades for diseases such as cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s found themselves through a logical process that led to clear targets for drug designers, the path that led to obesity drugs did not. It was like this. In fact, much of the drug remains a mystery. Researchers discovered by accident that exposing the brain to a natural hormone at levels never seen in nature caused weight loss. They don’t really know why, or if the drugs can have long-term side effects.
So far no explanation: specialist
“Everyone would like to say that there has to be some explanation or logical order to this that allows one to make predictions regarding what will work,” said Dr. David D’Alessio, Duke’s chief of endocrinology, who consults with Eli Lilly, among others. . “So far there isn’t.”
Although the drugs appear safe, obesity medicine specialists urge caution because, like drugs for high cholesterol or high blood pressure, obesity drugs must be taken indefinitely or patients will regain the weight they lost. .
Dr. Susan Yanovski, co-director of the office of obesity research at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, cautioned that patients would need to be monitored for rare but serious side effects, especially since scientists don’t yet know why. what drugs work
But he added that obesity itself is associated with a long list of serious medical problems, including diabetes, liver disease, heart disease, cancer, sleep apnea and joint pain.
to take into account
“You have to take into account the serious diseases and increased mortality suffered by people with obesity,” he said.
The medications can cause transient nausea and diarrhea in some. But its main effect is what matters. Patients say they lose constant food cravings. They are satisfied with much smaller portions. They lose weight because they naturally eat less, not because they burn more calories.
Results from a clinical trial last week indicate that Wegovy may do more than help people lose weight: it may also protect once morest heart complications, such as heart attacks and strokes.
But why that happens remains poorly understood.
“Companies don’t like the term trial and error,” said Dr. Daniel Drucker, who studies diabetes and obesity at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute in Toronto and advises Novo Nordisk and other companies. “They like to say, ‘We were extremely clever in the way we designed the molecule,'” Drucker said.
But, he said, “they were lucky.”
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