Obesity is the Latest “Disease” Biopharma Has Adopted Replacing Erectile Dysfunction

If ever there was a word that defines the outbreak of obesity in North America, it is “pandemic.” In the United States today, 70% of adults are overweight with more than half of them obese. The number of obese Europeans is half of that. Canadian numbers are half those in the United States with 35% deemed overweight. Of those, 30% fit the obese category which is defined as having a body mass index (BMI) of at least 30.

What is BMI? The American Centers for Disease Control (CDC) defines it as a number calculated using a formula that combines height and weight.

A confession from me: Last spring my BMI climbed over 30. I was obese. My blood tests indicated I was prediabetic. My doctor offered me a pharmacological remedy rather than dieting and exercise. She handed me a brochure about Ozempic and told me she was getting great results with other patients.

I asked her if Ozempic was a diabetes treatment. She said yes, but the side effect was rapid weight loss. I told her I would think about it. A diabetic friend prescribed Ozempic dropped weight faster than I had ever seen anyone do before. But what accompanied the weight loss was severe nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and a change in appearance. I’m not talking just about changes to body shape, but also to his face making him appear much older.

I decided to decline my doctor’s offer and forego the quick fix. The cost was another deterrent but I will talk about that later in this posting. I changed how I eat using portion control. I then added swimming to my activities when we moved to an apartment with a pool. Today, I swim 1.6 kilometres (1 mile) every other day. My weight has dropped steadily and my BMI no longer has me as obese. I’m still overweight but it steadily is coming down. Finally, my recent blood tests indicate I’m no longer pre-diabetic. I intend to continue down this path.

Are Drugs Always the Answer to Medical Conditions?

The acceptance by modern society to treat many medical complaints, and even things not medical, is to look for a drug. Ozempic and other drugs classified as semaglutides or glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) agonists are the latest way modern society is attacking bad eating and living habits. We overeat and we are not active enough. During the pandemic with lockdowns and people working from home, overall BMIs went way up.

Being overweight is bad but being obese produces many more self-inflicted wounds. Obesity causes higher incidents of diabetes, heart and liver disease, high blood pressure, cancer, osteoarthritis, gallstones, high cholesterol, sleep apnea, reproductive health issues and more.

Treating obesity through diet and exercise according to the National Institute of Health in best-case scenarios produces an average weight loss of between 5 and 10%. Keeping the weight off, however, is never guaranteed. I am one of those people who has fought being overweight for much of my adult life. I have tried diets, and calorie restrictions, and have seen wildly swinging losses and gains over the years. The only meat, vegetables and fruit diet worked for me for a while. But you can’t stay on a diet that excludes carbs forever. Eventually, you will want to eat a toasted bagel.

So why not take the drug panacea offered to treat the condition? That’s what millions with obesity have decided to do, with GLP-1 agonists taking the planet by storm. Ozempic has been joined by other new brands including Wegovy, Rybelsus, Trulicity, Mounjara, Saxenda and Bydureon BCise.

I am sure, with obesity now no longer a weight condition but rather a disease, it will, like its predecessor disease, erectile dysfunction and cure in the form of Viagra become the driver of profit margins for biopharmaceutical firms for the foreseeable future.

Was Erectile Dysfunction Ever a Disease?

When Viagra was first being developed by Pfizer it hoped to use it to treat high blood pressure and angina. It turned out it didn’t do either very well but it had an interesting side effect. It caused erections in male clinical trial subjects.

Could the side effect be a cure for something else? Pfizer decided to turn having and not having erections into a thing. When young, sexual potency is at its highest. It doesn’t last forever and by age 40, 40% of males experience erectile declines. This increases by 10% per decade as men age. Not all changes to erections are related to aging. In some cases, they are indicators of serious medical conditions.

Pfizer, however, having invested heavily in developing Viagra, chose to create erectile dysfunction as a disease. An ad campaign was hatched to promote the disease and the cure. Sales soared.

How Ozempic Came to Be

Ozempic’s right of passage is far more legitimate than Viagra’s. Obesity is a real problem. Treating it with drugs in the past has been problematic. Amphetamines and diuretics were the choices back in the 1950s, but they came with significant health risks.

The search for an effective alternative took decades until GLP-1, a 30-amino acid peptide hormone was identified in L-cells that reside in our intestinal tract. L-cells secreted glucagon which affected blood sugar levels. If GLP-1 could be isolated and used like insulin, it could become a way to control Type 2 Diabetes. But to perfect the drug took more than 30 years to achieve.

The first GLP-1 agonist drug to get U.S. Federal Drug Administration (FDA) approval was Byetta in 2005. Victoza came five years later. Both were approved for treating Type 2 diabetes. Two years ago Ozempic followed aimed at treating Type 2 diabetes while helping diabetics to lose weight. Ozempic clinical trials produced weight reductions of 15% over 16 months.

Since then, the advertising campaign asking “Is Ozempic right for me?” has led to soaring usage as a weight-loss drug. But there is more. Now, because of results obtained in large-scale clinical trials, GLP-1 agonists like Ozempic are being prescribed for treating heart failure. Clinical trials have shown that GLP-1 agonists delay kidney disease in patients with diabetes. There are even clinical trials with GLP-1 agonists to cure drug addiction, alcoholism, and nicotine dependency. What do GLP-1 agonists do to make it work on so many different medical problems? GLP-1 binds to receptors in the brain related to pleasure seeking. So if not food, why not wine, recreational hard drugs, opioid addiction, and cigarettes? And because GLP-1 agonists have an influence on inflammation within the brain, clinical trials for treating Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease are also underway.

Ozempic May Not Be The Panacea After All 

The body weight loss benefits for many taking GLP-1 agonist drugs outweigh the side of nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. But there are side effects that are showing up that cannot be ignored. They include incidents of intestinal obstruction and pancreatitis.

Then there is the “forever” drug issue. There is a reasonable fear of Ozempic rebound happening with those taken off the drug. Recent studies show that after stopping its use for a year the weight returns.

Finally, there is both the delivery and cost of Ozempic, which if you don’t have health benefits or a drug plan can run to US $1,000 per month. The delivery method is a weekly self-administered injection. Only one of the GLP-1 agonists, Rybelsus, is a pill to be taken daily. But even it costs $1,000 per month.