United States: For the first time in more than a decade, there was a decrease in the percentage of obesity in the United States from 46% in 2022 to 45.6% in 2023, a finding presented in the latest study in the JAMA Health Forum. The research indicates that newer drugs like Ozempic poised to help people shed weight may be contributing to this shift although specialists consider the trend changes to be contingent, as reported by NBC News.
The study focused on a large population of adults; with over 16.7 million samples, collected from different regions, age groups, and ethnicities during the period of 2013 to 2023. This study presented a general trend of weight reducing, especially in the Southern U.S., where people are increasingly using drugs for weight management. But the study also revealed that obesity was on the rise in some populations, namely Asian Americans.
Regional and Demographic Differences in Obesity Trends
As for obesity, however, the decrease was not experienced equally throughout the country. The largest decrease was recorded in the South region while regions that received high numbers of residents of Asian descents recorded higher numbers. Consequently, the South had the highest per capita of weight-loss drugs, and therefore these could have led to reduction in obesity in the said region. Nevertheless, the authors of the study advise that more research can be done to establish the real effects of these medications in regard to obesity.
Experts Urge Caution Over Weight-Loss Drugs’ Role
While GLP-1 weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Mounjaro have shown effectiveness in reducing obesity, experts urge caution in interpreting the recent decline in obesity rates. Dr. Tannaz Moin, an endocrinologist at UCLA, stressed the need for more long-term studies to determine if the decline is a lasting trend or just a temporary shift. The study only focused on a specific class of weight-loss medications, and experts suggest that a broader comparison with other treatments is necessary.
Moreover, medication is usually relatively expensive and maybe even unaffordable to many patients while the results may or may not reflect this factor. The study also used insurance claims data and therefore excludes patients that paid out of pocket for approved weight loss medications.
Opportunities and challenges
Dr. Moin also mentioned that patients enrolled in Medicare, who may have limited access to weight-loss medications, were likely missing from this study’s results. The increase in obesity rate can be combatted using a new rule by the Biden administration that seeks to extend Medicare and Medicaid to cover more options for weight-loss drugs, as reported by NBC News.
However, specialists do not rush with enthusiasm as they remember previous examples when it was possible to observe an early worsening of the obesity tendency. Additional and longer periods of research are required in distinguishing whether the recent decline on obesity rate is a reality or a mere fluctuation.