The GLP-1 Receptor Agonist Agents are Antiobesity Medications, Not Weight-loss Drugs

“Don’t call them weight-loss drugs; they are antiobesity medications.”

Caroline Apovian, MD, brought this up early in a recent interview with Patient Care where the discussion focused on the publicity swirling around the antiobesity medication (AOM) semaglutide 2.4 mg, marketed as Wegovy, and its sister drug for type 2 diabetes, Ozempic.

What seems to be missing from the celebrity celebrations of pounds shed while taking the glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists and even left out of news coverage is a statement of the actual clinical indication for the drugs, the labeling approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. There is only rarely use of the word “obesity” and no reference to the fact that obesity is a dangerous chronic disease.

Apovian, an internationally recognized weight management expert and researcher, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and codirector of the Center for Weigth Management and Wellness at Brigham and Women’s Hospital reviews how AOMs treat the disease of obesity.

Caroline M Apovian, MD, is a professor of medicine a Harvard Medical School and codirector of the Center for Weight Management and Wellness in the division of endocrinology, diabetes, and hypertension at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA. Apovian is one of the founding creators of the American Board of Obesity Medicine, the body that provides certification and recognititon for physicains who have specialized knowledge and training in the practice of obesity medicine.