They’re ridiculously expensive and almost no insurance covers them.
Also, if they have the same relapse issues with substance abuse that they do with appetite they will be something you will need to take for the rest of your life. They also have a large number of serious long term, and short term, side effects.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
CHICAGO, Nov 9 (Reuters) - A new class of weight loss drugs is transforming the U.S. healthcare system in ways that could extend to equally hard-to-treat areas like substance abuse, according to speakers at the Reuters Events Total Health conference in Chicago this week.
Drugs in the class, which are also under development at a number of other pharmaceutical companies, are designed to mimic action of the GLP-1 hormone to regulate blood sugar, slow digestion and suppress appetite.
He said NIH-supported studies are still “very much a work in progress,” and the drugs can cause side effects, but “it does open up a whole new set of possibilities to control things like obesity, metabolism in general, perhaps other addictive conditions.”
“I think these drugs are going to change the way people experience healthcare,” he said, while noting that reimbursement by health insurers has not yet caught up with demand.
“If you are able to get a better control of obesity in this country, the savings on the back end due to reductions in cardiovascular disease, and then, you know, related conditions will be quite vast,” Tabak said.
Much has been made of the impact the new weight loss drugs might have on consumer habits such as snack food purchases, but Driscoll said Walgreens has not seen that yet.
The original article contains 482 words, the summary contains 218 words. Saved 55%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I really don’t understand why this drug is being pushed so hard for anyone who’s not diabetic. One of the most serious potential side effects is thyroid cancer. My husband has been on this drug for a few years now (due to insulin resistance) and while it has been game changing for him I still worry about the side effects coming down the road. He has labs drawn annually to make sure nothing sneaks up on him and yes, insurance really doesn’t like paying for it.
Because the side effects of obesity and addiction are so much worse. Don’t worry too much about thyroid cancer. That one’s pretty easy if you’re monitoring. Remove thyroid, replace with meds. Lots of people end up on thyroid meds as they age anyway.
Yea I know. I’m one of those folks without a thyroid so I get the whole deal. Cancer is pretty scary though so we try to stay on top of it.
