Miracle Cure for Obesity? 

You might have seen that the American Academy of Pediatrics recently recommended anti-obesity drugs for children as young as 12. 

There are a lot of reasons for skepticism when the incentives of this decision are analyzed: 

• This drug, semaglutide, requires lifetime injections, or the weight comes back – making children pharma customers forever. 
• The main funders of the American Academy of Pediatrics are pharmaceutical companies. 
• Obesity is a symptom – not a cause – of metabolic dysfunction. If teens take semaglutide but continue eating an unhealthy diet, they will surely suffer other chronic conditions and die an earlier death. In this way, it is a moral hazard. 
• Semaglutide changes our metabolism to make us less hungry. Obviously, altering our metabolism will have unexpected effects. We are arrogant to think we understand much about how our body processes energy. There is a talking point going around that semaglutide has low side effects, which isn’t true: reports say a majority of people who take it experience gastrointestinal issues. Since most serotonin is created in the gut, this is almost surely accompanied by increased depression. 

Most importantly, we have finite choices of where we spend our healthcare dollars. Drug companies are arguing that the government or insurance companies reimburse this drug for every overweight american. What if we put those hundreds of billions of dollars into incentivizing healthy eating and exercising. That is a possible public policy option we are working to mainstream with TrueMed. I think the trends are clear: we will not get healthier as a country until we prioritize food over miracle cures. 

I wrote a bit more about this topic here. 

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