For the primary time in over a decade, weight problems charges in the USA could lastly be on track and new weight reduction medication like semaglutide could possibly be a part of the explanation why.
A brand new examine revealed Friday within the journal, JAMA Well being Discussion board, discovered that weight problems numbers ticked down barely from 46% in 2022 to 45.6% in 2023. Whereas solely a slight decline, that is the primary drop recorded in not less than a decade.
“What we’re seeing for the primary time is that curve is bending and exhibits an indication of hope for one thing that was actually a menace to American public well being for thus a few years,” mentioned examine co-author and ABC Information contributor John Brownstein, who can also be the chief innovation officer at Boston Youngsters’s Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical College.
The examine reviewed the physique mass index (BMIs), a measure of weight problems, of 16.7 million U.S. adults over a 10-year interval. The typical BMI rose yearly to 30.24 — which is taken into account overweight — till it plateaued in 2022, then dropped marginally to 30.21 in 2023.
Brownstein and his crew famous that girls and adults aged 66 to 75 noticed the biggest decreases in weight problems. Individuals dwelling within the South, the place they’d the best allotting charge of weight reduction medication often called GLP-1 receptor agonists, additionally noticed a significant decline in weight problems.
Semaglutide, which belong to a category of medicine often called GLP-1 agonists, is the energetic ingredient discovered within the widespread weight reduction medication Ozempic and Wegovy. The U.S. noticed a 700% improve in the usage of these medication particularly for weight reduction, from 2019 to 2023, in response to one Annals of Inner Drugs examine. They’re additionally used to deal with kind 2 diabetes or a mixture of diabetes and weight problems.
Brownstein mentioned that the rising use of those medicines could also be serving to to reverse weight problems traits.
Nevertheless, there could possibly be different elements at play, he added.
For instance, whereas information pharmacy prescriptions confirmed that the South had the best allotting charge of weight reduction medicines, this space additionally skilled a disproportionately excessive variety of COVID-19 deaths amongst folks with weight problems.
Way of life adjustments as folks emerged from pandemic isolation is also taking part in a job, the authors prompt.
“You’ve got this emergence from COVID, of which individuals are doubtlessly beginning to be extra energetic once more, stopping the sedentary habits that they picked up throughout COVID,” mentioned the paper’s co-author Benjamin Rader, who’s an assistant professor at Harvard Medical College. “All of those forces are at play, and I do not suppose we are able to disentangle them from this information.”
And, whereas the findings are encouraging, specialists warning that it is too quickly to inform if this pattern in direction of shrinking waistlines will proceed.
“I believe we have to take a look at this as a optimistic indicator in a particular database. That will imply that individuals are doing higher and that together with therapies are useful, however we have to see how that performs out over time,” Anne Peters, MD, a professor on the Keck College of Drugs, informed ABC Information.
Weight problems stays a vital public well being situation.
Almost 60% of U.S. adults with weight problems have hypertension and roughly 23% have diabetes, in response to the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention. Individuals with weight problems are additionally at increased danger for coronary heart illness, liver illness, and an extended record of different persistent well being circumstances.
However Peters identified that BMI is only one measure of total well being. An individual’s weight needs to be thought-about alongside different danger elements to get a full image of a person’s total well being and danger of persistent illness.
“You have to mix weight reduction with train and a more healthy weight loss plan,” Peters beneficial. “I believe we have to change how folks eat essentially and that may be significantly better than folks simply reducing weight.”
Niki Iranpour, MD is an inside drugs resident at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Heart and a member of the ABC Information Medical Unit
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