The research says that young kids should not take anti-obesity drugs

Should Young Children Take the New Anti-Obesity Drugs? What the Research Says: Why Do Young Children Have Obesity?

Adults and kids with Obesity are more likely to become teens with Obesity. Sarah Ro is the director of the University of North Carolina Physicians Network Weight Management Program, and she says many young children with severe obesity have already developed significant health issues. Her clinic in Hillsborough treats children with severe obesity who have health issues such as high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes or an advanced form of liver disease linked to excess weight.

“We know that a lot of the decisions doctors make are based on trials in adults,” he says. Evidence from children is required for clinical decision-making.

Findings in older children have been similar to those from the latest trial. A 2020 study1 investigating liraglutide in 12–17-year-olds found that 43% of those who took the drug showed a reduction of at least 5% in their BMI, compared with 19% of those who were on a placebo. And in a 2022 trial2, 73% of participants aged 12–17 who took semaglutide lost 5% or more of their body weight, compared with 18% of those taking a placebo.

But 72% of the 82 participants in that study were white, and only 6 individuals were Black, so the results might not generalize to children of colour. More diverse studies are needed, Ball says.

Scientists point out that the latest trial uses a strategy that has disadvantages. “BMI is not perfect. For kids, because they’re growing, it’s not an ideal metric,” says Ball. The authors of an editorial, that followed the findings, wrote that they were aware of the poor surrogate qualities of the body mass index.

According to Sarah Nutter of the University of Victoria in Canada, obese people should be defined by their weight-related health problems. The authors of the study should have used a more reliable indicator of health than BMI, she says.

Source: Should young kids take the new anti-obesity drugs? What the research says

The Effects of GLP-1 mimics on Children’s Development: A Diagnosis based on Oprah Winfrey’s Weight Loss

Not a lot. There are no long-term data on the effects of GLP-1 on puberty and growth in young children. That’s partly because the drugs are relatively untested in the youngest people. The approval of GLP-1 mimics in the United States has not been used to treat obese children younger than 12 years old.

The children who took part in the latest study received liraglutide for just over one year and were followed for another six months. The study will continue to monitor the drug’s safety until January 2027.

Ro calls for prolonged monitoring of the study participants to look for any signs of eating disorders. The GLP-1 mimics “are powerful drugs, and we need to wade carefully”, she says.

The children Ro takes care of, who can experience peer harassment, know all about that. “No one seems to be talking about the risks of doing nothing,” says Ro. Carrying 250 pounds (113 kilograms) on a 10-year-old body can affect growth and puberty, not to mention the heart, lungs and kidneys, as well as mental health and lifespan, she says. She says we need to consider the risks and benefits of treatment versus no treatment.

“Obesity is a disease,” Oprah Winfrey declared after disclosing her weight loss with an Ozempic-like drug. A doctor said on a ’60 Minutes’ episode that the drug is a brain disease. There is a find page for “Obesity is disease” on TikTok.

Diagnosis by B.M.I. was always imprecise; in an era of remarkably effective weight loss drugs, it’s untenable. 40 percent of Americans have a B.M.I. that is 30 or higher, and they’re classified as being obese. With new treatments that cost upward of $1,000 per person per month, along with supply shortages, how to define obesity is more than just a fight over nomenclature. It is about knowing who is sick and which diseases to treat and how to allocate health care resources. It’s about ending the murkiness that has surrounded obesity diagnosis for decades.