New weight-loss drugs like GLP-1s are not only reversing global obesity trends – they have far-reaching consequences for entire economic sectors and society, Matthias H. Tschöp, President of Ludwig-Maximilians Univerity Munich (LMU) shows in his DLD Health talk.
Until recently, the best advice a doctor could offer patients struggling with obesity was to “eat less and move more”. In most cases, this didn’t work. “70% of obesity [cases] are clearly genetically caused in interaction with the environment”, Tschöp emphasizes.
Decades of scientific research led to the the discovery that obesity is closely linked to molecular signals in the nervous system that control hunger, appetite, and ultimately body weight. “You could really say obesity is a brain disease”, Tschöp notes.
In many patients, drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy has shown effects that go far beyond weight loss, he points out. “They help with cardiovascular disease and cancer”, Tschöp says, and they also reduce the risk of alcohol and nictotine addiction.
Watch the video to explore this talk in detail and find out what this new type of drugs could mean for the food industry, pharmaceutical companies – and even airlines.
