WHO recommends weight loss drugs as treatment for obesity

The World Health Organization (WHO) is preparing a significant change in its approach to treating obesity and will, for the first time, recommend the use of modern weight-loss drugs as part of standard care for adult patients.

The draft guidelines, which are currently open for consultation, state that GLP-1 drugs—developed by pharmaceutical companies Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly—should be part of long-term therapy for people with a body mass index (BMI) over 30.

The WHO emphasizes that obesity is not just a lifestyle issue, but a chronic and progressive disease that is often recurrent and poses a serious threat to health.

It points out that obesity affects more than a billion people worldwide and is a major factor in millions of premature deaths.

Just recently, the United Nations Children's Fund published a report stating that children and adolescents are currently more likely to be obese than underweight. According to UNICEF, 188 million minors meet the WHO criteria for obesity.

(reuters, max)