LONDON — Starting in the new year, a team of researchers in the U.K. and Denmark will begin recruiting patients for a study driven by a pressing question in medicine: How should new obesity medications be incorporated into regular practice?
Trials have demonstrated that the powerful drugs can help people shed weight in dramatic ways, but clinicians are still trying to sort out how to best use them. The medicines, after all, are pricey, come with side effects, and won’t work for everyone. And despite the excitement around these drugs, known as GLP-1s, some people might prefer or see better results with the other approaches that have long been the foundation of obesity treatment, from diet to surgery.
“These drugs clearly are very effective, and that is fantastic,” said Susan Jebb, a professor of diet and population health at the University of Oxford and one of the leaders of the project. “But we have other options for treating obesity. What we need to do now in research is understand which treatments, for which patients, at which stage of their disease.”