The Hindu Huddle 2025: ‘Ozempic will not solve India's obesity problem'

The Hindu

10-05-2025

The explosive popularity of GLP-1 (Glucagon-Like Peptide-1) drugs for addressing weight loss, diabetes and obesity, such as Ozempic and Munjaro are useful for a limited number of people and will not solve the obesity or diabetes crisis that India is battling, said Dr Anoop Misra, Chairman, Fortis Centre of Diabetes, at The Huddle by The Hindu on Saturday.
These drugs weren't new drugs, he explained and had been around for nearly two decades. However earlier versions of these drugs had limited 'weight-loss' benefits. Some of these drugs were effective at aiding weight-loss upto 20% but were still only suitable for a limted segment of people who were 'terribly obese' and resistant to diet and exercise-based regimen, cautioned Dr Misra, an acclaimed diabetologist with decades of research experience under his belt.
At the panel convened to discuss the challenges from non-communicable diseases in India, labelled as the 'Trojan Horse' of India healthcare, the discussants – Dr Preetha Reddy, Executive Vice Chairperson, Apollo Hospitals; Dr Chandrakant Lahariya, Health and Social Sector Policy Adviser and Dr Misra – agreed that sedentary lifestyles, excessive consumption of high-fat and sweetened foods were they causes of this Trojan Horse incursion.
The prevalence of obesity was rising among youngsters and there was concern that were these trends to continue, the much-vaunted 'demographic dividend,' or the surplus of youth, who would power India's economic future, would become a liability, said Dr Reddy. 'We want to keep people out of hospital beds,' she underlined.
Governments and public health bodies could play a role in discouraging the 'two whites'- salt and sugar – whose excessive consumption was a problem but Dr Lahariya cautioned that sugar was a source of 'inexpensive calories' for a vast number of India's poor who often could not meet their daily caloric needs. Salt, he informed, was an integral part of the staple Indian diet and Indians on average consume twice the World Heath Organisation recommendations. That said, he suggested, imposing heavy taxes may not be advisable and instead there ought be better more visible warnings on detrimental health effects in packaged food.
Advising against mindlessly following health fads, Dr. Misra said that ketogenic diets' (low carbohydrate-high fat diets) ought not to be followed beyond three months. It was instead healthier to tweak regular diets to cut calories and increase protein content, he opined. 'So called gluten-free diets that cost thrice as much had no benefit. I'd always recommend low-cost diets,' Dr Misra advised. 'There is well-founded research that cutting 15kgs can in several cases reverse diabetes.'
While the challenges from diabetes were significant, Dr Lahariya said that India was also grappling a 'mental health' crisis.
The prevalence of some form of mental health challenge was around 12% (nearly almost as diabetes), and severe mental illness around 2%. 'It is high time that public health institutions evolved a systematic response.' he added.
While India was a developing country, it had managed to evolve a system of health screening that was 'comparable' to developed countries. 'It can certainly be improved and there is a range of options available that are a 10th of what it costs in the West,' reckoned Dr Reddy.
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