BioWorld
According to the World Obesity Federation, one billion people globally will be living with obesity by 2030. With medical researchers’ laser focus on finding solutions to address the obesity epidemic, excitement is finally building around the next generation of drugs developed to help adults shed excess weight. These new classes of drugs offer promising results and may provide an alternative solution to weight loss other than invasive procedures such as bariatric surgery. While new weight loss drugs are an extraordinary advance in medicine and will likely become some of the most prescribed of all medications in the upcoming years, how will perceptions in the medical community around the role of fitness in weight loss and overall health evolve?
Following deep analysis of the latest studies on weight loss, metabolic health and fitness, BioWorld Science Managing Editor, Anette Breindl, discusses:
- How difficult scientific detachment can be for health topics that have large cultural components. Heated debates continue around the discrepancies between individuals with Body Mass Index (BMI) in the “overweight” range, often associated with the greatest longevity, and individuals in the so-called “Class I obesity” category, who often live as long as those with a “normal” BMI.
- How weight loss is blind to the behavioral differences between brown and white fats. Weight may be a poor proxy for health as fat cells are distributed throughout the body, and the details of where they are and what they are doing matter a great deal.
- The effects of GLP-1R agonists, also called incretin mimetics, which go far beyond weight loss, and the question of whether weight loss is causal to their effects.
- How new methods are enabling a molecular understanding of exercise, which may be much more important to health than weight is.
Lynn Yoffee, Publisher, BioWorld said: “Drug-induced weight loss has finally matured into a viable therapeutic option for patients. At the same time, there are longstanding concerns that the health effects of weight might be overrated. Can a person still be considered fit and healthy despite being over what is considered a normal weight? BioWorld Science Managing Editor Anette Breindl has reviewed the latest research around these challenges and raised several complicated red flags, just as millions of people are desperately hoping that the new weight loss pills are the answer in the quest to be healthy.”
