Interested in the New Weight Loss Drugs?
Being on a diet sometimes feels like an American pastime: If you haven’t experienced the “pleasure” of it, then it’s almost certain that your BFF, baby brother, aunt or someone else in your close circle of family and friends has.
It’s probably no coincidence that government statistics show that more than 30% of Americans are overweight and more than 42% have obesity. A related government survey found that almost half of US adults said they have tried to lose weight in the last 12-month period. The top two methods were exercising and eating less food, followed by consuming more fruits, vegetables and salads. People want to lose weight to look a certain way “now,” and they also want to live longer and healthier lives, with a lower risk of developing serious health conditions in the future.
But anyone who has ever dieted can tell you that losing weight is hard and that long-term weight loss requires sustained effort, which can sometimes feel Herculean, even impossible. A new class of medications — called glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists, or GLP-1s — has taken the country by storm because these drugs seem to make weight loss more effortless. They often quiet the “food noise,” or brain chatter about food, that makes it so hard to stick to those all-important lifestyle changes.
Excerpted from CNN
