Medicine Bariatrics

Is using injections the solution to combating obesity?

1_The hoopla surrounding weight-loss injections is unavoidable:

• There are many before-and-after images on social media, They are the source of hysterical rumors about Hollywood celebrities, and now the National Health Service of the UK will cover their costs.
• It's easy to see the appeal, The adage "diet and exercise" has mostly failed for most individuals, and being overweight has a negative impact on our health and contributes to stigma.

• However should the aforementioned medication, semaglutide, be referred to as a "miracle" or "skinny jab" when some medical professionals believe it to be the most debatable form of therapy? Does the hype reflect the truth? Or are we simply condemning individuals to a lifetime of medication by failing to address the causes of obesity?

• One of the first individuals in the globe to participate in semaglutide trials was Jan from Kent. Although some people have been purchasing this form to lose weight, it is also offered as Wegovy for weight loss and as Ozempic for diabetes.

• We all know someone like Jan, who has battled her weight her entire life and has tried every diet.
• A hormone that is released after eating is mimicked by semaglutide, It depresses appetite and confuses the brain into believing that we are full, causing us to eat less.

• Jan told me that her relationship with food had changed so drastically once she began receiving the injections that it was either the medicine or "I've been abducted by aliens."

• She could finally enter a cafe, pass by some millionaire's shortbread, and not have her body yell, "I need one!"

• She explains that instead, "I don't feel hungry... my body was saying you don't want it, it wasn't me using willpower,"

• For a period as least, semaglutide's effects are conclusive.

• In a trial, obese adults who took semaglutide and received counseling on leading healthy lifestyles lost, on average, 15% of their body weight. Be aware that this is not a "skinny jab"; 15% reduces your weight from 20 stone to 17.

• According to that study, the weight was lost throughout the course of the first year before stabilizing over the final three months of the trial. What transpires when people use the substance for a long time is unknown.

• 28 kg, or more than four stone, were lost by Jan After previously being over the weight limit, it allowed her to finally enjoy her 60th birthday present—a fly in a Tiger Moth airplane. "I was flying in more ways than one, and boy, did I enjoy it."

• The effects are more convincing than those of a conventional diet, which frequently starts out well before signaling to the brain to eat because of your body's depleted fat stores. Diets inevitably fail for this reason.

• According to Prof. Sir Stephen O'Rahilly, the head of the Metabolic Diseases Unit of the Medical Research Council, "more than 90% of people typically end up back at the weight they were before they started on their dietary journey."
• He views the availability of these medications as the "start of an exciting era" in which medication can assist those who have "struggled for a long time" with weight that is harming their health.

• Jan was no longer able to take semaglutide when her trial was over, She was no longer deceived into thinking she was full by the narcotic in her system.

• She admitted to me, "I was quite upset because the weight was gaining back," and she was "promising the world" to anyone who could provide her with the medication.

• She tried several weight-loss treatments before deciding to have major surgery and a gastric sleeve to make her stomach smaller and help her feel full more quickly.

• Jan still thinks the medication was the "best thing that ever happened to me" and that he has "no regrets."

2_social failure or medical success?

• Personally, I'm not sure if we should be happy that medicine has developed such a treatment or if the truth is that we have failed so miserably to combat obesity in society that we now require pharmaceuticals.
• According to Naveed Sattar, professor of metabolic medicine at the University of Glasgow, "many of us have been grappling with that."

• He takes the pragmatist position. By 2035, it's expected that half of the world's population will be overweight or obese. Excess weight is associated with type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and several malignancies. Cheap calories, according to him, have "fed into human biology of being tempted by food and overeating".

• Additionally, he notes that a large number of NHS patients "have four to five conditions as a result of their excess weight, and at the moment we pay lip service to it."

• The poorest citizens of the country have been the ones who have felt the effects of the government's obesity programs the least, despite their having been 14 of them in the preceding three decades. Obesity and destitution are clearly related.

• Dr. McCartney contends that rather than "expecting" individuals to get weight "and then accept a medical intervention to treat it," we need to address how the environment in which we live fosters obesity.