Ozempic, Wegovy And Other Weight-Loss Drugs Won't Solve Global Obesity Crisis Affecting 1B People, WHO Warns

The World Health Organization (WHO) has cautioned that the increasing global obesity crisis, which now affects over a billion people, cannot be resolved by the use of obesity medications alone.

What Happened: The WHO has warned that the use of effective and popular obesity medications will not be sufficient to address the growing global obesity crisis, which now affects over a billion people, reported Bloomberg.

The warning comes as obesity rates have quadrupled among children and teenagers and more than doubled among adults since 1990.

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The WHO’s first global public analysis of the condition since 2017 revealed that approximately one in every eight individuals worldwide is living with obesity. While obesity rates have stabilized in some affluent nations, they are rapidly rising in low- and middle-income countries.

Although new obesity medications such as Novo Nordisk‘s NVO Wegovy, Ozempic and Eli Lilly & Co‘s LLY Zepbound could potentially create an $80 billion market by 2030, they are unlikely to address the growing inequality in weight-loss treatment, according to the study’s senior author, Majid Ezzati.

"These drugs are definitely an important tool, but they should not be seen as a solution to the problem," said Francesco Branca, director of the Department of Nutrition and Food Safety at WHO, who was also a co-author of the study.

Why It Matters: The global obesity crisis has been a growing concern, with various pharmaceutical companies developing innovative drugs to address the issue. A study in December revealed that prolonged use of Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy was linked to greater weight loss, sparking hope for more effective treatments.

This was followed by a forecast in February, where Goldman Sachs predicted that obesity solutions, including weight-loss drugs, could act as a catalyst for an economic surge.

This was further supported by large U.S. drug makers highlighting the Indian market for their blockbuster drugs, including weight-loss medications.

Over 1,500 researchers conducted a global survey, gathering weight and height data from over 220 million individuals across 190 countries to assess the prevalence of obesity. Obesity was defined as a BMI of 30 or higher in adults and was assessed based on weight and age in children. The study revealed that an estimated 879 million adults and 159 million children likely suffer from obesity as of 2022, according to the report.

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