New Irish health clinic set to make ‘fat jabs' more accessible to those battling obesity
Top medic says new clinic aims to make injections more accessible but says they won't be prescribed for 'aesthetic thinness'
But the top medic leading the programme cautioned that 'expectation management' is as important as weight management for those hoping to transform their health on the revolutionary drugs.
'We hear about the 20 per cent weight loss and 17 per cent weight loss,' begins Professor Suzanne Norris of the dramatic results seen by some users of GLP-1 drugs including Meghan Trainor, who put being at her 'healthiest [and] strongest' down to Mounjaro. 'However, the clinical trial data says that 85 per cent of people will lose at least 5 per cent body weight, so let's work from there.
'Obviously at the higher doses, some people did lose 20 per cent or 18 per cent or 17 per cent, but not everybody did. It's not that they haven't made enough of an effort — it's just bad luck. It's just the biology of your obesity disease that you don't respond to these drugs.
'But I would say there is significant weight loss for the majority of people.'
Meghan Trainor lost significant weight on Mounjaro
Figures from the HSE show how 60 per cent of Irish adults are now obese — with half the world's population expected to be living with the disease by 2050, according to separate scientific research.
Newly opened in Dublin, Therapié Health is giving patients a chance to avoid becoming a statistic, or develop associated chronic illnesses ranging from type 2 diabetes to cancer, with a personalised Wegovy plan, strictly for over 18s with a BMI over 30 or BMI over 27 with at least one other weight-related condition like high cholesterol.
'This programme is very definitely not for people who just want to lose a few pounds before holidays or after holidays,' begins the clinical director, who is a consultant hepatologist and gastroenterologist and professor at Trinity College Dublin. 'That's not what we're interested in addressing, we're interested in addressing the problem of obesity.
'Most of my work, for the last 15-odd years, is liver-related. If you've too much fat on your liver, which is about two-thirds of what I see, and invariably due to obesity and being overweight, that's a risk factor for diabetes over ten years.
'So there's an opportunity when you know that somebody is developing those problems to really look at [their] health in the round, not just a liver focus, so that's how I've come into this.
'This is not new in the medical world,' adds Professor Norris of the medications which were originally developed to treat diabetes, before becoming more famous for their fat-blitzing side effects, with Rosie O'Donnell another of the shrinking stars who've spoken about their transformations.
Professor Suzanne Norris
News in 90 Seconds - Saturday July 12
'There's been a whole raft of clinical trials over the last ten years to get to this stage where they are now licensed for use in obesity. But what's happened post-Covid, [with] TikTok and celebrities talking about it, [is] sometimes [the science] can be sidetracked.
'It's not just about weight loss — it's about the health gains from weight loss.'
Speaking to Magazine+ , as clinics elsewhere in the capital begin giving access to Mounjaro, a spokesperson for the HSE told how its Model of Care for Obesity, guided by international evidence, 'recognise[s] obesity as a complex, relapsing chronic disease where excess adiposity (body fat) has an impact on health.
'The guidelines recommend that people with obesity should have comprehensive individual assessment before agreeing treatment options. BMI is a measure of body size and is a useful screening tool, but it is not sufficient as a clinical assessment of excess body fat and its impact on health.
'In clinical practice, obesity staging tools such as the Edmonton Obesity Staging System (EOSS) should be used to assess the impact of excess body fat on a person's metabolic, functional and mental health before deciding on the best treatment options.
'Treatments for obesity include behavioural treatments, medication and bariatric surgery.'
Therapié Health's medically-supervised programme includes a consultation (€50) and blood test (€95), with Wegovy costing €220 per month, and follow up appointments €35 per visit. Read more
As demand for the jabs soars, however, Kathryn Thomas's recent RTÉ investigation, The Skinny Jab Revolution, showed just how easy it is to secure the medication online without a prescription, or even being overweight.
'I was shocked when I saw that,' Prof Norris says about the ease with which the already-slim presenter was able to get her hands on Ozempic, which like other GLP-1 (Glucagon-like Peptide 1) drugs, works by mimicking a hormone that lowers blood sugar and suppresses the appetite.
'But I can't say it enough: this is not a programme for aesthetic thinness. Sometimes it's difficult to have a conversation around the benefits because there's been, and understandably, a lot of media attention, around black market activity and it being unsafe.
'We know there's an awful lot of black market stuff, and you don't know what you're getting, it's not supervised, and people don't know about the side effects or how to manage the side effects; and that can all be done in a proper programme where you've got medical supervision.
'I think this is an opportunity to look at health, education, and for people to feel comfortable in accessing these drugs, because we've heard so much about how they shouldn't be used, but it would be nice to have a little bit of positivity around what they can achieve.'
Tackling the nation's growing waistline, however, could be nothing next to tackling the taboos that persist around obesity, admitted Prof Norris.
'We all probably have our own inherent biases, and I say that as a medic, [but] I think, increasingly we're coming to understand that obesity is a biological disease.
'For many people, body weight is not a choice — it's the biology of how their body handles sugar and so on. If you think of it like that, that takes away anything about 'it's somebody's fault' or 'they're not doing enough'.
'I think people who live with obesity are very committed to their health, but struggle because we haven't had good drugs to help. These drugs are definitely the game changers to manage this — it's actually quite exciting.'
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