Just like diabetes and hypertension, obesity is also a disease. Obesity results in various other diseases that may eventually become fatal. Appropriate treatment of obesity can lead to reduced weight and improvement in complications like diabetes, hypertension, fatty liver disease and sleep apnea. Just like diabetes, where we use medicines in addition to lifestyle changes, people with obesity will also require medicines if weight is not manageable with diet and lifestyle changes.
People with obesity and multiple other diseases like sleep apnea, uncontrolled diabetes, fatty liver, and hypertension have a poor quality of life and reduced lifespan due to these diseases. Although diet is an integral part of weight management, and an initial weight loss is produced by diet, weight regain is a rule rather than exception. Scientific studies have shown that medicines are able to produce additional weight loss on top of medicines, sustain weight loss over long term and reduce risk of complications.
Currently we have medicines like Liraglutide (3 mg), Semaglutide (2.4 mg), Tirzepatide and Orlistat approved for weight loss. So, anyone with obesity and other associated disorders would benefit from using these anti-obesity drugs under medical supervision. On a similar note, people with higher degrees of weight gain and related diseases also will benefit from bariatric surgery. Bariatric surgery has been shown to prolong the lifespan and reduce the risk of diseases like diabetes, hypertension, sleep apnea, fatty liver, and heart disease.
So, anti-obesity medicines and bariatric surgery are not short cuts to weight loss, but an essential part of managing people with obesity.