The Guardian’s take on weight-loss pills and addiction: There’s a lot of morals about this remarkable drug | Editorial

i didOver the years since so-called weight loss pills have been widely used, there have been reports that these drugs may not only reduce food cravings, but actually stop cravings and cravings altogether. Earlier this month, a study using large-scale data from US veterans receiving diabetes treatment suggested that jabs are less likely to become addicted to a wide range of drugs. Patients who were already using the drug were about half as likely to have an overdose or drug-related death if they also took the jab.

This is an interesting avenue for future research. These drugs act in part on the pleasure and reward centers in the brain. It is likely that food and drug problems share the same biological basis, and next-generation drugs may be stronger or more targeted to one or the other. But, at the same time, we should expect that existing weight loss drugs will end up being prescribed (or off-label) for addiction treatment. This should make us rethink our approach to this remarkable drug.

Clearly, drug addiction is seen as a disease that obesity – despite some progress – is not. Since the introduction of GLP-1 agonist drugs, many have argued that using them for weight loss is a kind of cop-out—an answer to a problem that must be solved through willpower and willpower. In regards to articles that claim “weight loss shouldn’t be easy”, in countries like Germany that cover diabetes treatment but not obesity in general, a government spokesman said weight loss is “a matter of individual responsibility and personal lifestyle”.

There are actually drawbacks to GLP-1 agonists. They are expensive and have unpleasant side effects, and additional rare but serious complications may still occur – a recent study suggested that they carry a greater risk of vision loss. The chief medical officer for England, Professor Chris Whitty, recently argued against the prescription, which is seen as an alternative to policies to promote healthy eating that he thinks are urgently needed. she is right Being truly healthy takes more than just a job.

But it is important to be practical, and to recognize that people have already made their choice: one in eight Americans, and about one in 20 people in the UK, have taken a GLP-1 drug. They shouldn’t be recommended to lose a few pounds for the holidays, but it’s hard to imagine another drug that treats a serious health condition — like obesity — carrying such a stigma.

This is where combining addiction treatment comes in handy. When methadone and Suboxone were introduced, there was considerable resistance to their use based on the belief that they were the only way to overcome opioid addiction. Few people think so now. Once we become less moralistic about addiction, we can be practical about treatment. If GLP-1 drugs also work on addiction, it should make us wonder why there is so much aversion to their use in a disease with similar serious health effects.

However, as the former director of the US Food and Drug Administration, David A. Kessler, writes in his recent book Diet, Drugs and Dopamine, “the fact that new anti-obesity drugs are so effective points to the fact that being overweight or obese is not the product of a lack of discipline or willpower”. If a drug can target it, “it’s a matter of biology”. This is a lesson we learned about addiction. It’s time to expand that knowledge.

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