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Eli Lilly releases data for a new weight-loss drug to tackle obesity : Shots - Health News : NPR

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This drug is a true gamechanger

In the SURMOUNT-1 study, people who took the highest dose of tirzepatide, most of whom had a BMI of about 30 or higher but did not have diabetes, lost about 21% of their body weight during the 72 week study. As researchers point out, for people who have bariatric surgery, typical weight loss is about 25% to 30% of their weight, one or two years after the surgery. In the tirzepatide study, 36% of people taking the highest dose lost 25% or more of their body weight.

this is comparable to bariatric surgery

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As NPR has reported, when patients can't afford to stay on obesity medications, they are likely to gain much of the weight back.

If I were Eli Lilly and Company, I would invest into food science, trying to make as many different hyperpalatable foods aimed at teenagers and young adults as possible. The more people have BMI of 30 by the time they are 30, the bigger the market for their drug is. Imagine the government first handing out food stamps to poor Americans, then paying for their obesity treatment via Medicaid.

I'd guess that if the drugs are really effective and the collective societal BMI starts going down, it eventually creates a feedback cycle where obesity generally becomes less and less acceptable and thus there's going to be less people having BMI 30 by 30.

i doubt it. type 2 diabetes can be attenuated with diet modification yet society tolerates it. Down Syndrome is tolerated even though it can be prevented with prenatal screening.

What do you mean by Down syndrome is tolerated? We do screen all pregnancies for Down syndrome and terminate pregnancy in case of positive test. Sometimes the screening test is not done or the test fails but those are exceptions and not the norm.

who is we? where? this is not true in the US. that is the decision of the mother.

It always should be. But the idea is that almost always the decision is made to terminate the pregnancy. That's the point of making the test. Maybe in some countries that percentage is still not sufficiently high due to poorly understood information and we should think how to improve that.