Weight loss drugs are an important part of the arsenal against obesity, new guidelines suggest. The four new weight loss drugs that have been recently approved have been shown to be more effective when combined with diet and exercise than just diet and exercise alone. The guidelines were published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. While experts stress that the first line of defense against obesity is a reduced-calorie diet and exercise, weight loss drugs play a key role in helping patients lose weight.
That is because all of the weight loss drugs available today reduce the appetite, which many health experts feel is the most important boost a dieter needs to slim down. Many overweight people suffer with increased appetite, and diets fail largely because of the physical hunger of the participant.
The four new drugs that have been approved include naltrexone/bupropion, liraglutide, lorcaserin and phentermine/topiramate. Three of these medicines are pills and one, liraglutide, gets injected once per day. This drug, also called Saxenda, is a higher-dose version of an already-approved diabetes drug, Victoza. While all of the drugs work to reduce appetite, some may also assist the body in burning fat.
A fifth drug that many people are watching is called beloranib. It is currently being studied in people with Prader-Willi syndrome and so far, has shown results similar to weight loss surgery. Beloranib is also administered via subcutaneous injection.
These weight loss drugs are important in the arsenal against obesity, yet many doctors, especially general practitioners, still refuse to prescribe them because those doctors do not accept weight loss as a real disease.
Studies have proven that diet and exercise, alone, fail nearly 100 percent of the time when long term results are tallied. Conversely, weight loss surgery has been proven to be curative in obesity, even over many years. Despite these facts, medicines to help people lose weight have a difficult time getting off the ground, and sales have been sluggish for most of the new drugs out today due to doctors’ resistance to them.
As guidelines in the medical field continue to suggest that weight loss drugs are important in the arsenal against obesity, perhaps those medicines will be prescribed in greater numbers to those who struggle with weight and appetite problems.