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American teenagers are more and more turning to the weight-loss drug Wegovy as extra households and their docs achieve confidence in its use for younger individuals with weight problems, new information shared with Reuters reveals.
The common charge of teenagers starting remedy with the extremely efficient Novo Nordisk NOVOb.CO drug grew 50% final yr to 14.8 prescriptions per 100,000 adolescents, in response to an evaluation by well being information agency Truveta.
That’s up from a charge of 9.9 prescriptions per 100,000 in 2023, the primary full yr that Wegovy was out there to youngsters aged 12 and older. The common charge climbed additional in the course of the first three months of this yr, reaching 17.3 new prescriptions per 100,000.
That nonetheless represents a minute fraction of the estimated 23,000 out of each 100,000 teenagers within the nation who’re dwelling with weight problems, and is way slower than the uptake amongst U.S. adults.
“It’s promising that more young people are using these medications, but it’s still a very small percentage of patients with severe obesity that are getting access to them,” stated Dr. Cate Varney, director of weight problems medication on the University of Virginia Health system. “When lifestyle changes alone are insufficient, we need these additional tools.”
For its evaluation, Truveta reviewed the digital well being information of 1.3 million sufferers ages 12 by way of 17. The information covers 30 U.S. well being methods with greater than 900 hospitals and 20,000 clinics throughout the nation.
The evaluation didn’t embody different GLP-1 medication, together with Novo’s Ozempic and Eli Lilly’s LLY.N Zepbound, which aren’t authorised to deal with weight problems in adolescents, or compounded variations of those therapies.
Wegovy grew to become an choice to deal with adolescents in late 2022 after a long time wherein the traditional approaches of eating regimen, train and counseling largely failed.
About 8 million American teenagers, or 23% of individuals ages 12 to 19, have weight problems, up from 5% in 1980, in response to U.S. authorities information. Young individuals with weight problems run a a lot greater danger of creating persistent, expensive, life-shortening situations like sort 2 diabetes and cardiovascular and liver ailments.
In January 2023, the American Academy of Pediatrics strongly advisable that docs present weight-loss medication to youngsters with weight problems beginning at age 12. Yet the medical neighborhood has not uniformly embraced GLP-1s for adolescents.
Some docs are hesitant as a result of the medication’ long-term security for kids throughout a essential section of improvement is unknown, and the remedies could should be used indefinitely.
Overall, there are restricted choices for a lot of teenagers and their dad and mom as a result of insurance coverage typically don’t cowl any remedy for weight problems, together with intensive behavioral counseling, visits with a dietician or the brand new GLP-1 drugs.
At Nemours Children’s Hospital in Wilmington, Delaware, the Healthy Weight and Wellness Clinic handled about 2,000 adolescent sufferers final yr.
About 25% had been prescribed Wegovy or one other GLP-1 remedy, stated Dr. Thao-Ly Phan, the clinic’s medical director. The variety of adolescents with a GLP-1 prescription almost doubled from 2023.
On common, their sufferers taking a GLP-1 drug misplaced 15 kilos (6.8 kg) inside 6 to 12 months, and almost 30 kilos after greater than a yr.
For lots of the different sufferers, the drugs weren’t an choice, both due to insurance coverage hurdles or concern inside households about potential dangers. Other teenagers opted for life-style adjustments or older, cheaper weight-loss medication, with some success.
“It is important for us to continue to monitor and better understand outcomes from the medications — both positive and negative — before widespread use,” Phan stated.
U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has criticized the thought of prescribing Ozempic or Wegovy broadly to youngsters to deal with weight problems.
In a federal well being report he launched final month, GLP-1 medication had been cited for example of the “overmedicalization of our kids.” It famous an absence of “long-term safety data, raising the specter of unforeseen problems that interrupt, damage, or impair metabolism and growth development.”
Novo in a press release stated semaglutide, the energetic ingredient in Wegovy and Ozempic, “did not appear to affect growth or pubertal development” throughout its medical trials involving teenagers.
For many adults, Novo stated, weight problems begins in childhood or adolescence, and “we are confident in the proven safety and efficacy of our GLP-1 medicines.”
Eli Lilly’s weight-loss drug Zepbound is in late-stage medical trials to be used by adolescents. Lilly instructed Reuters that “there has been no evidence to date suggesting impairment in growth or metabolism” from GLP-1 drugs.
Dr. Robert Siegel, a pediatrician and director of the Center for Better Health and Nutrition at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, stated about 15% of adolescents being handled there have been prescribed Wegovy or the same GLP-1 remedy from July 2021 to July 2023. They embody sufferers being handled for sort 2 diabetes for which the GLP-1 medication had been initially developed.
Siegel stated he prefers to begin teenagers on three to 6 months of intensive life-style administration earlier than even contemplating remedy.
While weight problems specialists might help navigate potential dangers from the medication, many primary-care suppliers want extra coaching, he stated. They could not have the tools to observe for the lack of muscle mass — a facet impact of those medicines — or lack the sources to work with households over an prolonged interval on more healthy consuming and train.
“These medications are likely to be needed for a very long time to maintain weight,” Siegel stated, “and we only have a relatively short-term experience with them.”
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