The FDA has issued a permit for the use of a revolutionary drug to get rid of excess weight
The US Foods and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the medical use of Wegovy to treat obese people. The medicine can be given to patients whose overweight has led to the onset of related diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, at the same time as a low-calorie diet and exercise. The drug must be taken with weekly injections.
The active ingredient in innovative Wegovy is Semaglutide, developed by Novo Nordisk to help patients with diabetes. It is a synthetic analog of human glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1), a hormone that is normally produced in response to food intake and regulates many processes associated with food digestion. When people who have diabetes take this drug, it stimulates the production of insulin, allowing blood glucose levels to be kept under control.
The practice of using Semaglutide has shown that people taking it regularly also lose weight, after which it was studied in a new capacity. Tests have confirmed that relatively large doses of the drug can fight obesity — their results were published in The New England Journal of Medicine. After the checks, the FDA approved it for treating overweight. According to the WHO, 13% of the world’s adult population is obese, and one in four people are overweight.
The trial involved 68 non-diabetic volunteers. They were given Wegovy injections. As a result, subjects lost an average of 12.4% more excess weight than people who received a placebo. The safety of the drug has been reliably confirmed. Among the side effects are nausea, dizziness, abdominal pain, dyspepsia and others, so it is recommended to take it only under the supervision of a doctor.
According to many experts, Semaglutide can be called a revolutionary remedy. It became the first of the GLP-1 analogs, and new such substances are already being tested. Pharmaceutical companies finance the development of analogs of other incretins — hormones of the endocrine system involved in regulating digestion, eating behavior, insulin secretion etc. Some still show even greater effectiveness than Semaglutide. Perhaps soon the area of overweight treatment will indeed face a pharmacological revolution.
According to scientists from the British University of Exeter, the causes of overeating and subsequent obesity lie in the human subconscious. The evolutionary mechanism was responsible for the “accumulation of fat”. In the human past, being overweight was not a threat to survival. Excessive thinness was much more dangerous. The body was especially diligent in storing fat in the winter when food in natural conditions was more difficult to get.
The body regularly responds to weight loss by demanding food but does not respond to overeating. “It would seem that the mechanics of the evolutionary process should let us know when the body no longer needs food. Instead, under conditions of “artificial” nutrition, this control is very weakened. Modern flavored food is stronger than evolution,” one of the study’s authors, Professor Andrew Higginson explained.