New medication that can cut body weight by 23% could radically reduce the number of people who are obese.

Tirzepatide is taken weekly by injection and is manufactured by the pharmaceutical company Lilly.

Globally, obesity among adults has more than doubled since 1990 and has quadrupled among children and adolescents between the ages of 5 to 19 years of age.

In Ireland, nearly 60% of adults are overweight or obese.

On Newstalk Breakfast, specialist in obesity management and GP doctor Mick Crotty said that this drug could help to manage the obesity epidemic.

“This is looking at the long-term use of medication to treat the chronic disease of obesity and the benefit to people’s health,” he said.

“With this particular medication, they showed a 23% reduction in body weight that was maintained long-term.

“They showed a 94% reduction in progression to diabetes – so, people with prediabetes going on to develop diabetes – and they showed that the benefits were maintained while people continued on the treatment.

“This is not a quick fix, it’s not ‘the skinny jab’, it's not a short-term solution – it's treatment for a chronic medical condition.”

January 24, 2006 - Needles And Vials (Credit Image: Kelly Redinger/Design Pics via ZUMA Wire)

Dr Crotty said that the drug would likely be very expensive for the average person when released onto the market.

“These are not weight loss medications per say, but the challenge is they're very high cost,” he said.

“They're not reimbursed by the health system.

“The healthcare economics is a significant issue because there's potentially a lot of people whose health could improve, but the cost of the medication and the supply is very challenging.”

Chronic disease

While obesity prevention tactics are important, we should see the condition as a chronic disease that some people cannot control, according to Dr Crotty.

“We've had this long-standing stigma and bias in society that excess waste is an issue of our motivation, and we know that that's utter rubbish,” he said.

“This is a genetically confirmed neurological condition that is heavily influenced by our environment.

“We have traditionally focused on prevention of obesity and that's really, really important – but now we're also saying that there is treatment available for people who live with this disease.”

Dr Crotty said the drug studied in this research is not expected to be available until 2025.