Anti-obesity drug discovery: advances and challenges

[Eddy Edson]

Anti-obesity drug discovery: advances and challenges - Nature Reviews Drug Discovery

The development of therapies that are capable of safely achieving sizeable and sustained body weight loss has proved tremendously challenging. Here, Müller et al. provide an overview of the history of anti-obesity drug development, focusing on lessons learned, ongoing challenges and recent...

www.nature.com

Enormous progress has been made in the last half-century in the management of diseases closely integrated with excess body weight, such as hypertension, adult-onset diabetes and elevated cholesterol. However, the treatment of obesity itself has proven largely resistant to therapy, with anti-obesity medications (AOMs) often delivering insufficient efficacy and dubious safety. Here, we provide an overview of the history of AOM development, focusing on lessons learned and ongoing obstacles. Recent advances, including increased understanding of the molecular gut–brain communication, are inspiring the pursuit of next-generation AOMs that appear capable of safely achieving sizeable and sustained body weight loss.

 

[Drummer]

If only enormous progress could be made stopping influential people telling their victims to eat carbs because they are healthy and disparaging any idea that they might cause weight gain in those susceptible. They started on at me half a century ago with their duplicated diet sheets advising porridge or cereals with skimmed milk for breakfast, baked potatoes for lunch....