New obesity guidance: Overcoming systemic barriers
The Obesity Society, Obesity Medicine Association and Obesity Action Coalition released a joint expert guidance statement on the pharmacologic management of adult patients with overweight or obesity.
Published in Obesity, the statement detailed that although obesity — which affects about 40% of the U.S. adult population — has been recognized as a chronic disease, underdiagnosis and undertreatment remain prevalent as a result of barriers such as socioeconomic disparities, inadequate clinician training, reimbursement policies and stigma. To address these issues, a multidisciplinary panel developed recommendations on the basis of data from the Epistemonikos databases and consensus workshops.
The panel established strong recommendations with moderate-certainty evidence for U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved obesity drugs, including bupropion-naltrexone, semaglutide, tirzepatide and setmelanotide. Conditional recommendations were established for obesity-related complications like obstructive sleep apnea, heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease/steatohepatitis, osteoarthritis, Type 2 diabetes and major adverse cardiovascular events. Further, the panel provided a strong recommendation to continue the use of obesity drugs during weight maintenance.
The panel hopes their new guidance statement can help expand access to pharmacologic therapy in this patient population. Additional strategies such as integrating comprehensive obesity care in primary care settings, performing head-to-head trials and reducing health care costs could further improve obesity management.
Read more: Obesity
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