Obesity treatment: will pharmacotherapies replace metabolic surgery in the future?

Abstract

Obesity is a chronically progressing disease that represents a major challenge for affected patients, health care professionals and society, since it is highly prevalent and associated with several comorbidities. The treatment of obesity aims at body weight reduction, reducing the burden of comorbidities and weight maintenance after weight loss. To achieve these goals, a conservative treatment strategy is recommended that consists of an energy-reduced diet, increased physical activity and behavioral modifications. If individual treatment targets cannot be achieved by basic treatment, stepwise therapy intensification should be initiated including short-term very low calorie diets, pharmacotherapy or bariatric surgery. However, these treatment approaches differ with respect to average weight loss and other outcomes. There is still a large gap between the efficacy of conservative strategies and “metabolic” surgery that cannot be filled by current pharmacotherapies. However, recent advances in the development of anti-obesity medications could change the positioning of pharmacotherapies in obesity management. Here we discuss whether next-generation pharmacotherapies have the potential to become an alternative to obesity surgery in the future.