Title:Current Options for the Pharmacotherapy of Obesity
Volume: 25
Issue: 18
Author(s): Ioanna Gouni-Berthold*Heiner K. Berthold
Affiliation:
- Polyclinic for Endocrinology, Diabetes and Preventive Medicine, University Hospital of Cologne, Cologne,Germany
Keywords:
Obesity, anti-obesity drugs, weight loss, body mass index, pharmacotherapy, energy-homeostasis-related pathways.
Abstract: 650 millions of adults are obese worldwide - in the US alone, forty percent of the adults are obese.
Although the obesity pandemic is constantly expanding at very high costs for health care systems, the currently
available options of pharmacotherapy for obesity are rather limited. Despite intensive research efforts, the vast
majority of the anti-obesity drugs developed up to now have a rather limited efficacy and/or safety profile. In the
last fifty years, various drugs reached advanced states of clinical development but were either never marketed or
were initially approved but withdrawn later due to safety issues. However, the understanding of the pathophysiology
of obesity has been steadily improving and new, promising drugs targeting various selective obesityassociated
and energy-homeostasis-related pathways are now available. When lifestyle changes alone fail to combat,
then additional pharmacotherapy with an acceptable efficacy and safety profile could provide a useful therapeutic
option.