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'Quick fix' GPs blamed as number of people using diet pills balloons
By Sarah Harris
Daily Mail
28th March 2011
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1370575/Quick-fix-GPs-blamed-number-people-using-diet-pills-balloons.html#ixzz1Huvpr7EC
Record numbers of overweight men and women are resorting to diet pills, statistics reveal.
Doctors are writing almost 1.5million prescriptions a year for the drugs – 11 times more than a decade ago.
The figures come as obesity is spiralling, from 7 per cent of adults in 1980 to 23 per cent in 2009.
However, it is feared that many GPs are using the pills as a quick fix instead of encouraging patients to focus on healthy eating and exercise.
Just 127,000 prescriptions for obesity pills were handed out in England in 1999 against 1.45million in 2009, according to latest figures from the NHS Information Centre.
The cost to the Health Service has rocketed to almost £47million a year as a result.
Orlistat – which is marketed under the trade name Xenical – is the only anti-obesity pill currently available for GPs to prescribe to seriously overweight patients.
Rimonabant – also known as Acomplia – was withdrawn from the market in 2009 due to the risk of serious psychiatric problems, and use of sibutramine – also known as Reductil – was suspended last year amid fears it increased the risk of heart attacks and strokes.
Orlistat, which came on to the market in 1998, disrupts the absorption of fat in the intestine so that the body excretes it instead.
Users must stick to a low-fat diet or face unpleasant side effects, including bowel problems.
Although doctors argue that issuing pills is only a last resort after obese patients have failed to lose weight by changing their diet and lifestyle, health experts have criticised the findings, arguing that GPs are still turning too quickly to the prescription pad.
Dr Clare Gerada: 'obesity is a ticking time bomb'
Dr Tam Fry, of the National Obesity Forum, said: ‘NICE (the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence), which should be used as a gold standard, says pills should be second on the list of anti-obesity actions and that exercise and healthy eating should be the first.
‘The problem with that, however, is that it takes such a long time to see the effects that many doctors are reverting to pills as a first course of action followed up rapidly by bariatric surgery (gastric banding or a gastric bypass).
‘The only problem with any pill is what happens when the weight comes off and you finish treatment. Are they able to maintain the weight which they have attained or do they just put it all back on again?’
Bridget Benelam, nutritional scientist at the British Nutrition Foundation, insisted that obesity pills were not a ‘magic bullet’.
She said: ‘Obesity drugs alone are not going to help us solve the obesity problem.
‘If that’s being used instead of longer term changes to diet and lifestyle, it will be a problem and people won’t get the results that they need to improve their health.’
Dr Clare Gerada, chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said obesity was a ‘ticking time bomb’, leading to serious complications including diabetes and heart disease.
She added: ‘Of course GPs always advocate healthy eating and regular exercise to maintain a healthy weight, but some patients need additional help.
‘It is better that GPs work with their patients to monitor the efficacy of weight-loss drugs in the long term than patients buying them over the counter without any clinical support, and without knowing the full risks involved.’
Meanwhile, the latest data on global trends in obesity has revealed that weight levels rose rapidly in Britain between 1980 and 2008.
British women are now the most overweight in the whole of Western Europe, according to research recently published in The Lancet medical journ
By Sarah Harris
Daily Mail
28th March 2011
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1370575/Quick-fix-GPs-blamed-number-people-using-diet-pills-balloons.html#ixzz1Huvpr7EC
Record numbers of overweight men and women are resorting to diet pills, statistics reveal.
Doctors are writing almost 1.5million prescriptions a year for the drugs – 11 times more than a decade ago.
The figures come as obesity is spiralling, from 7 per cent of adults in 1980 to 23 per cent in 2009.
However, it is feared that many GPs are using the pills as a quick fix instead of encouraging patients to focus on healthy eating and exercise.
Just 127,000 prescriptions for obesity pills were handed out in England in 1999 against 1.45million in 2009, according to latest figures from the NHS Information Centre.
The cost to the Health Service has rocketed to almost £47million a year as a result.
Orlistat – which is marketed under the trade name Xenical – is the only anti-obesity pill currently available for GPs to prescribe to seriously overweight patients.
Rimonabant – also known as Acomplia – was withdrawn from the market in 2009 due to the risk of serious psychiatric problems, and use of sibutramine – also known as Reductil – was suspended last year amid fears it increased the risk of heart attacks and strokes.
Orlistat, which came on to the market in 1998, disrupts the absorption of fat in the intestine so that the body excretes it instead.
Users must stick to a low-fat diet or face unpleasant side effects, including bowel problems.
Although doctors argue that issuing pills is only a last resort after obese patients have failed to lose weight by changing their diet and lifestyle, health experts have criticised the findings, arguing that GPs are still turning too quickly to the prescription pad.
Dr Clare Gerada: 'obesity is a ticking time bomb'
Dr Tam Fry, of the National Obesity Forum, said: ‘NICE (the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence), which should be used as a gold standard, says pills should be second on the list of anti-obesity actions and that exercise and healthy eating should be the first.
‘The problem with that, however, is that it takes such a long time to see the effects that many doctors are reverting to pills as a first course of action followed up rapidly by bariatric surgery (gastric banding or a gastric bypass).
‘The only problem with any pill is what happens when the weight comes off and you finish treatment. Are they able to maintain the weight which they have attained or do they just put it all back on again?’
Bridget Benelam, nutritional scientist at the British Nutrition Foundation, insisted that obesity pills were not a ‘magic bullet’.
She said: ‘Obesity drugs alone are not going to help us solve the obesity problem.
‘If that’s being used instead of longer term changes to diet and lifestyle, it will be a problem and people won’t get the results that they need to improve their health.’
Dr Clare Gerada, chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said obesity was a ‘ticking time bomb’, leading to serious complications including diabetes and heart disease.
She added: ‘Of course GPs always advocate healthy eating and regular exercise to maintain a healthy weight, but some patients need additional help.
‘It is better that GPs work with their patients to monitor the efficacy of weight-loss drugs in the long term than patients buying them over the counter without any clinical support, and without knowing the full risks involved.’
Meanwhile, the latest data on global trends in obesity has revealed that weight levels rose rapidly in Britain between 1980 and 2008.
British women are now the most overweight in the whole of Western Europe, according to research recently published in The Lancet medical journ
