The killer obesity is back in the news in a big way, and it needs to stay there. It is wrecking lives and has to be restrained.
“To what degree could perhaps weak productivity be down to poor health?” This question was asked in these pages this time last year in Appetite Suppressants – A Panacea for Obesity?. It has now been answered. Anxious people, not just serious depression sufferers, succumbing and staying at home are a well-rehearsed story and are seriously damaging the economy, which seems a generally accepted truth. Now the question has been answered regarding obesity: a research study involving 28 countries led by the Health Economics and Health Policy Research Group, Institute of Advanced Studies, Vienna, Austria found that the seriously obese were last year 2.5 times more likely to have been off work for a week due to sickness than people of healthy weight. Overweight people, not just the obese, were also considerably more likely to have done so.
Turning to the UK, it is particularly badly affected as it is the fattest significant nation in Europe. Other Sherbhert articles referred to in this article cite the statistics which are horrifying. It is also worth recording as Sherbhert has done before that obesity corelates closely with consumption of non-food, that is very processed food and drink, packaged in retail stores or sold via fast food outlets. And the UK is a world leader in consumption of non-foods. Is there any serious doubt that unless there is a serious Government and food supplier effort to educate the consumer away from a bad diet and incentivise a move to healthy produce and healthy eating, then the UK economy and individuals’ life spans and quality of life will continue to suffer more and more, and the poorest in society will be the worst affected. Biting the bullet on this hot potato has been deferred again and again by frightened politicians, in the face of hypocritical lobbying and the disingenuous defence of the freedom of the ignorant to self-harm and to kill themselves, and to trash the lives of their children.
APPETITE SUPPRESSANTS
Recent press has been focussed mainly on the appetite suppressant drugs as if they are perhaps a panacea for weight control, and perhaps other killer diseases. These drugs are mainly based on mimicking a hormone known as GLP-1. Norsk Nordisk of Denmark is now the most valuable quoted company in Europe and is so big it alone has transformed the Danish economy. It makes the GLP-1 drugs Wegovy and Ozempic, which for some time have been sold at great expense in the U.S.A as an obesity cure. These days they are coming into the UK system but slowly and mostly only in private hospitals, but the NHS is approving them. They are also now being touted as panaceas to reduce heart attacks and strokes in some people. Apparently a new even better GLP-1 is also being trialled in the U.S.: Retatrutide allegedly outperforms Semaglitide (Wegovy) and Tirzepatide (Mounjaro), because it adds a third hormone, Glucagon which burns off more fat.
As with all such drugs side-effects include “nausea, diarrhoea and constipation” let alone appearance negatives.such as drooping skin. No wonder, as they are designed to put people off food. Commentators are hailing the transformational nature of such drugs, and Professor John Dearfield of University College London, a strong advocate, sees such discoveries as comparable to the discovery of statins. But statins have been shown to have few and rare side effects so far, unlike these new “wonder drugs”. The jury should very much still be out on their “wonderfulness” but a wave of almost hysterical enthusiasm is at risk of taking over. Some prudence is surely required.
WARINESS VERSUS LAZINESS
Enthusiasm for innovation is vital, and nowhere is there more innovation on a regular basis than in healthcare and bioscience. Potential game-changers need however to be assessed with the prudence accorded to drugs generally. Fast-tracking approvals, without damage to thoroughness, is also good as was done with Covid vaccines. Hastening regulatory approvals by curtailing procedure is nevertheless fraught but could be more tempting the greater the public appetite for the new drug.
Also, scientific research and data need to be presented with the utmost integrity and accuracy, and the world today, as Sherbhert has previously highlighted, is full of false medical journal reports, with considerable corruption in that academic world, and with China a hotbed. That is not to suggest that the research or reporting on these new appetite suppressants is false. But extra care is needed when drug makers and sellers stand to make huge profits from a drug, ramping the value of corporates’ share prices and so the personal wealth of their owners and directors.
For some time, politicians have been under pressure to tackle obesity and of course the major causes of death such as cardiovascular death linked to obesity. They have failed to do so through education of the public and regulation. Food companies and retailers are not incentivised really to assist the public to improve their health. There may therefore be an attraction in the promotion, and perhaps over promotion, of the GLP-1 drugs as an answer to so many health problems . They may be for some people without real harm, but their seeming universal power may be being exaggerated. So, regulators and politicians must be extra diligent and not succumb to a lazy acceptance of a seeminingly attractive quick solution. Drugs are expensive and have to be paid for, in the UK always mainly by the taxpayer. Also, what may seem a ready answer today may prove long-term the wrong answer. For years the medical profession has handed out anti-depressants like confetti, a lazy response to mental anxieties, and today the learning is telling those same medics to rein in their usage. Similarly, the use, or lazy abuse, of antibiotics has put in jeopardy the future effectiveness of these vital remedies for infection, and so millions of lives at risk in the future.
Laziness is also a malaise which today seems to infect public attitudes, demanding fixes from outside rather than people having to make change and take on the chin the bit of “pain” which goes with that. To cure self-inflicted obesity, itself brought on by selfish pleasure instincts and laziness in many cases, it is tempting for the individual to grasp a new solution which means they do not have to address personal weakness. So, appetite suppressants have an attraction. But becoming dependent on a drug for years with likely nasty side effects, and probably some side effects as yet unknown, is a bad decision and habit. Is not the real answer for people to understand the dangers of obesity and the advantages of healthy eating and living and choose those options? But the wonder drugs may well discourage those hard decisions.
KEEPING PERSPECTIVE
It’s good that obesity is now recognised as deadly to economic productivity. It’s good that more and more publicity should lead to more and more effort to reduce weight. The more that ultra-processed food can be understood to be a killer and life waster like, for example, tobacco, the better. And action may perhaps result to really seek to beat obesity. It is notable how the tobacco industry remained steadfast against the harm of tobacco but knew for so long its potential to destroy – is the same malaise affecting the food industry when it comes to unhealthy ultra processed food, non-food? New drugs, like Wegovy, will be a part of the solution if used wisely, but as ever the answer very much lies in lifestyle choices of individuals. And here at least surely government, institutions like the NHS, and employers can do so much more.
Getting carried away with the usage of drugs for life as opposed to people changing their approach and their habits is surely too dangerous but albeit tempting to industry and regulators. This issue remains the passion of Sherbhert it has been since inception in 2019, so please forgive our repetition of worries. We hope that the “health” commitments in party manifestos for the coming election in July will address this issue among others affecting the NHS.
Sherbhert articles on obesity in the past include: –
Appetite Suppressants – a Panacea for Obesity?
Balance and Food – People, Plant, Plants and Processed
Non-Food, Obesity and Mortality – Time for a National Diet Strategy?
Families, Graft and Fatness – Calling a Shovel a Spade
Healthcare is the UK’s Rock of Sisyphus
