Accountability

UK may begin offering appetite suppressant injections to morbidly obese people

Published

5 years ago

February 13, 2022

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has greenlit the use of appetite-suppressing injections for people who are morbidly obese.

The drug, Wegovy, which is already in use for type 2 diabetes patients, is a weekly injection that suppresses appetite, and in clinical trials decreased obese peoples’ weight by an average of 15 percent, making the shot as effective as lap band surgery.

The drug is set to become available via NHS prescription. To qualify, patients must have a BMI of at least 35 and at least one comorbidity. NICE says the jab will likely be approved for up to two years per patient. The expected approval of the semaglutide by NICE comes amid an obesity epidemic in the UK. The Health Survey for England 2019 showed at least 28 percent of adults in the UK are obese.

The dose of the drug for obese people will be 2.4mg per week, double the dose given to diabetic patients. Some patients in trials have seen changes in their weight after just a few weeks.

Terry A. Hurlbut

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Terry A. Hurlbut has been a student of politics, philosophy, and science for more than 35 years. He is a graduate of Yale College and has served as a physician-level laboratory administrator in a 250-bed community hospital. He also is a serious student of the Bible, is conversant in its two primary original languages, and has followed the creation-science movement closely since 1993.