![\"New](\"https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/10120529\/SEI_163183274.jpg?width=1200\")
<\/div>There are TikTok hashtags with millions of followers, endless column inches over celebrities\u2019 waistlines and streams of media coverage when trial results come out. It is rare that a new medicine gets so much attention. Then again, it is even rarer that a licensed drug causes safe and rapid weight loss with minimal effort.<\/p>\n
A year ago, most people hadn\u2019t heard of semaglutide, a drug developed to treat type 2 diabetes around a decade ago under the brand name Ozempic. Then, in 2021, it was approved in the US as a weight-loss aid under the name Wegovy. The medicine can cause people to lose a whopping 15 per cent of their body weight.<\/p>\n
The impact of this new class of medicines could be unprecedented \u2013 potentially bringing to an end the world\u2019s growing obesity epidemic. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s fully sunk in yet,\u201d says Jonathan Campbell<\/a> at Duke University in North Carolina, who investigates how these drugs affect the body.<\/p>\n For one thing, Wegovy was just the start. The next generation of these drugs is in development and will be cheaper, easier to use and, crucially, even more potent. What\u2019s more, emerging evidence suggests Wegovy and its ilk work better when given at a younger age, so doctors are exploring their use in teenagers and young children. This raises the prospect of switching from obesity treatment to prevention. \u201cWe have watched the obesity landscape change dramatically over the last 40 years,\u201d says Campbell. \u201cNow, maybe we\u2019re at a turning point where that goes backwards.\u201d<\/p>\n The rise in obesity has been happening since about the 1970s\u2026<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\nWhy obesity is on the rise<\/h2>\n