The demand for a certain diabetes drug that can also lead to weight loss has led to shortages!
Last week, the executive vice president of Scripps Research, Eric Topol, wrote in a blog post that “We now have a breakthrough category of drugs that can achieve the profound weight loss equivalent to bariatric surgery. That, in itself, is remarkable. Revolutionary.”
Sure enough, a handful of drugs have appeared on the market in the last few years, taking the effectiveness of weight loss drugs in the past to an entirely new level.
The list includes semaglutide which Novo Nordisk sells in the form of the weight loss drug Wegovy and diabetes drug Ozempic.
Novo also sells liraglutide while Eli Lilly is known for tirzepatide, sold under the brand name Mounjaro.
However, while obesity is a huge problem around the globe, and especially so in the United States where over 40 percent of the population is obese, insurers have been resisting paying for weight loss drugs.
Sure enough, Wegovy will cost you $1,300 per month.
The reason why insurance avoids paying for it is that despite evidence obesity is linked to insulin resistance and hormonal factors, they still presume it’s generally behavioral, NBC News says.
In spite of this, celebrities promoting drugs such as Ozempic has led to many people around the country hurrying to get doses of their own, making it more and more difficult to purchase by those who need it the most.
Amanda Velazquez, from the Cedars-Sinai Center for Weight Management and Metabolic Health, told CBS News that “The demand exceeded expectations any of these drug manufacturers could have imagined.”
Not to mention that these drugs come with many scary side effects so their use should not be taken lightly.
According to Mayo Clinic, they can cause gastrointestinal problems, low or high blood sugar levels and are even linked to an increased risk of pancreatitis and cancer.
Topol also pointed out that, since insurers generally refuse to pay “The cost of these drugs will profoundly exacerbate inequities since they’re eminently affordable by the rich, but the need is extreme among the indigent.”
All in all, the conclusion is clear – there are more and more seemingly effective weight loss solutions on the market these days but their prices and lack of insurance coverage mean we will not see their true impact on the lives of those who need it the most for a while.