By Deena Beasley
(Reuters) – Highly effective weight-loss medication are increasing use of U.S. well being care as sufferers beginning prescriptions are recognized with obesity-related circumstances or take the medication to turn into eligible for different companies, well being information and discussions with medical doctors present.
An unique evaluation of tons of of 1000’s of digital affected person information by well being information agency Truveta discovered slight, however measurable, will increase in first-time diagnoses of sleep apnea, heart problems, and sort 2 diabetes inside 15 days of an preliminary prescription for a GLP-1 weight-loss drug between 2020 and 2024.
Along with obesity-related circumstances, some sufferers are being prescribed the medication to drop some pounds and turn into eligible for companies together with organ transplants, fertility therapies or knee replacements, in accordance with interviews with seven medical doctors and 5 different well being specialists.
“This is a population that previously felt stigmatized by health care providers and often didn’t return. But now that they’re actually seeing themselves get healthier, asking clinicians questions and engaging more, I do think we’re seeing new patients,” stated Dr. Rekha Kumar, a New York endocrinologist and weight problems drugs specialist.
Novo Nordisk (NYSE:)’s Wegovy and Ozempic and Eli Lilly (NYSE:)’s Zepbound and Mounjaro have been proven to result in common weight lack of at the very least 15%.
Andrew Friedson, director of well being economics on the Milken Institute and three different specialists stated the impression of the medication on general healthcare use is just not but clear. The brand new diagnoses might imply greater preliminary spending, however early detection might save prices down the road, he stated.
Dr. Courtney Younglove, an weight problems drugs specialist and founding father of Heartland Weight Loss clinic in Overland Park, Kansas, stated she has referred weight problems sufferers for long-delayed pap smears and different routine care, together with colonoscopies. Many obese sufferers keep away from medical doctors and routine checks for years as a result of stigma and bias they usually encounter, she stated. “Lots of people with weight problems do not do plenty of preventive well being upkeep.”
‘THE COURAGE TO ASK’
Phil, a 43-year-old Chicago technology executive who asked for his full name to be withheld for privacy reasons, generally avoided doctors before receiving a GLP-1 prescription from a telehealth provider in early 2023.
He said he told his regular physician about the medication months later, after he had lost more than 30 lbs, and was taken aback by her supportive response. He decided then to advocate more for himself and ask for help with other conditions including addiction and mental health.
“It gave me the braveness to ask,” he said.
The Truveta analysis found that for every 1,000 patients with a first time GLP-1 prescription, 42 were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes within 15 days in 2024, up from 32 in 2020. Over the same period, the number of sleep apnea diagnoses per 1,000 patients rose to 11 from 8 and the number of cardiovascular disease diagnoses increased to 15 from 13.
The most obese patients were twice as likely as people who were less overweight to receive a type 2 diabetes diagnosis, and three times as likely to be diagnosed with sleep apnea, the Truveta data showed.
The analysis was based on 33,630 first-time GLP-1 prescriptions for overweight or obese patients in 2020 and 224,496 in the first 10 months of 2024.
Lilly declined to directly comment on the data, saying in an emailed statement “it’s important that adults dwelling with weight problems obtain applicable prognosis and entry to evidence-based care.”
Novo Nordisk also declined to comment directly, noting its aim “to handle unmet wants for a wider vary of sufferers.”
QUALIFYING FOR SURGERIES
ResMed, which sells sleep apnea devices, had revenue growth of 11% for its fiscal year ending in June – a trend the company attributed in part to the GLP-1 drugs.
The medications are “bringing individuals into main care like by no means earlier than,” ResMed CEO Michael Farrell said at the company’s recent shareholder meeting.
In addition to things like sleep apnea, the weight-loss drugs could lead to more joint replacements, said Sara Stahl, director of healthcare research at market analysis firm AlphaSense.
“As individuals’s BMIs come down, they will be eligible for surgical procedures they would not in any other case,” she said. “Nobody is saying that is taking place in a significant method proper now, however we expect it would.”
University of Chicago Medicine last year launched a weight-loss clinic aimed at helping prospective organ transplant patients lose weight to qualify for surgery, with the GLP-1 drugs playing a key role.
“Earlier than that they had a spot to ship these sufferers, which is our clinic, the scheduler would simply say, ‘hey, what’s your weight, what’s your top, what’s your BMI,’ and in the event that they did not match their standards, they’d simply inform them to drop some pounds on their very own,” stated Anesia Reticker, the middle’s medical pharmacist specialist.
Retired Indiana steelworker Bensabio Guajardo, 68, was prescribed Ozempic on the clinic in 2023 when he was deemed too overweight for a double lung transplant wanted to maintain him alive after pulmonary fibrosis made respiratory more and more tough.
“It helped me a lot. It took my cravings away,” Guajardo stated. After dropping round 90 kilos and stopping the drug forward of a profitable surgical procedure in Might, his physician put him again on it to regulate excessive blood sugar.
Reticker stated this system has acquired about 100 referrals over the previous 12 months from transplant facilities within the Chicago space.
