Pharmacotherapy for Obesity

Authors and Disclosures

Wiebke Fenske¹, Jennifer Parker¹ and Stephen R Bloom<sup>†1

1</sup>Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism, Department of Medicine, Imperial College London, London W12 0NN, UK

^†Author for correspondence
Tel.: +44 208 383 3242 Fax: +44 208 383 8320 s.bloom@imperial.ac.uk

Sidebar

Key Issues

• Obesity has reached epidemic levels, with a total of 500 million adults classed as obese globally in 2008, which is expected to rise to 700 million by 2015 (WHO).

• A number of new centrally, peripherally or even combinative acting drugs are in development, but no efficacious pharmacotherapies for obesity currently exist.

• Increasingly stringent efficacy and safety requirements have led to the rejection of many weight-loss drugs by the US FDA.

• Bariatric surgery is currently the main approach to obesity treatment, with the gastric bypass being the most effective procedure available for sustained weight loss and decreased mortality risk. However, the invasive nature of this treatment and the risk of peri- and post-operative complications must not be underestimated.

• Elucidating and utilizing the underlying mechanisms of surgically induced weight loss for the effective and safe treatment of obesity will represent a major area of research in the coming years.