Wed, Sep-06-23, 08:41
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Plan: Muscle Centric
Stats: 238/153/160
BF:
Progress: 109%
Location: UK
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Wonder drugs can’t solve our obesity problem
A contentious issue so putting this opinion piece here in the War Zone.
Quote:
Wonder drugs can’t solve our obesity problem
Wegovy is making its inventors rich but the real solutions to Britain’s crisis lie in education and a ban on junk food ads
They’re partying in Denmark, having discovered a miracle drug that appears to guarantee weight loss. More than 10,000 staff at Novo Nordisk held an all-day rave last week. The 100-year-old firm is suddenly close to becoming the most valuable company in Europe, worth £340 billion, because of its new slimming sensation, Wegovy, which is being sought by everyone from Elon Musk to the NHS.
At the same time food suppliers and supermarkets have been raking in the cash. Deliveroo had revenues of close to £2 billion last year from serving us convenient snacks day and night; McDonald’s sales and profits continue to rise.
So there we have it. Big food companies have been fattening us up for 50 years but big pharma companies will save us. Both industries are making vast profits out of people’s desire for doughnuts, burgers, fried chicken and muffins and our subsequent misery at being overweight. Meanwhile the NHS has to pick up the bill for our addiction to ultra-processed food. Obesity has been costing public healthcare billions and accounts for one in six hospital admissions. Now doctors must spend even more on drugs to help alleviate the problem. It seems insane.
The proponents of Wegovy say this really is a wonder cure that will help deal with obesity and its related diseases by suppressing people’s appetites. The drug, semaglutide, mimics a venom found in the mouth of a Gila monster lizard, which needs to eat only four times a year. It regulates blood sugar levels, which is why it was first used for type 2 diabetes, alongside its sister drug, Ozempic. It is also thought to help with high blood pressure and heart disease.
However, the NHS has announced that it will only provide a weekly injection of Wegovy to 50,000 people for two years as part of a weight management plan. What then? Even if they eventually extend this to more overweight people, will these patients inflate and deflate for the rest of their lives as they go on and off the drug? Or will they end up having to take an injection of semaglutide once a week for life?
Online pharmacies such as Boots have said they will sell Wegovy for about £200 a month but that’s £2,400 year. Only the richest can afford the cost of going private indefinitely. Most of the 26 per cent of people in this country who are clinically termed as obese, including a fifth of 11-year-olds, could be playing a game of snakes and ladders, up one year, down the next, as they binge and abstain.
Even those who can afford Wegovy long-term may find that it doesn’t work for them. One friend who took it discovered the nausea, dizziness and lethargy she endured were so debilitating that she had to stop, and piled on even more weight. Another lost three stone but also his sense of taste and smell. The saddest side effect of Wegovy is that it can put you off food, rather than teaching you to celebrate each mouthful.
Every generation has a wonder drug to deal with the nation’s ills. In the UK in the 1980s, Prozac was seen as the panacea for depression: take the little white pill and all will be fine, yet mental health problems have spiralled. It’s always preferable to treat the causes rather than the symptoms.
Everyone knows that if you exercise more and eat less, you’ll be fitter. This sounds easy but it’s impossible for many to summon the willpower to eat healthily in the 21st century. Showing daily self-restraint is exhausting, particularly for children if they are constantly bombarded with advertisements for sugary cereals, unhealthy food at school, cheap chocolate and crisps, and aren’t playing enough sport while glued to their screens.
Adults in this country face similar difficulties. Amazon deliveries, working from home, affordable cars and household gadgets are convenient but mean most of us don’t move as much as older generations once did. Meanwhile, frazzled parents with little money and time can at least “reward’ their families with pizza and ice cream. Everywhere we go now, there is an abundant array of food: at service stations, on trains, in coffee shops.
No one should be fat-shamed for being supersized; we’re all fighting an industry intent on turning you into an addict, convincing you to eat artificial, highly processed, cheap, easy foods. These salty, sugary concoctions often imitate the carbs-to-fat ratio in breast milk and have hyper-palatability but leave us craving more.
The prime minister, with his Peloton bike and indoor swimming pool, doesn’t appear to understand. Maybe he has looked at his predecessors who have tried and failed with 689 anti-obesity measures since 1992. However, the 2018 sugar tax on fizzy drinks has been a success, with companies reformulating their brands, and should be extended to ultra-processed food. There should also be a ban on junk food advertising before 9pm and schools should be encouraged to reintroduce sport alongside maths as a compulsory part of the day.
The Danish aren’t stockpiling Wegovy for themselves. They have one of the lowest rates of obesity in Europe, having introduced a tax on unhealthy products and encouraged the nation to eat a low-fat Nordic diet and get on their bikes.
In Vietnam they are also obsessed with food but theirs is almost all home-prepared from dozens of local ingredients, often grown on people’s balconies and in their backyards, and enjoyed with the family. They don’t crave sugar and salt, but herbs, rice, fish and vegetables, and they love cooking. Maybe that’s why they have the lowest obesity rates in the world.
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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...oblem-tb20g9dmm
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