Today in France, according to the national epidemiological study on weight and obesity carried out by the National League Against Obesity, nearly 10 million French people aged 18 or over are obese.e. A figure which, in 2024, represents 18.1% of the population residing in mainland France and overseas territories, and which has only been increasing for several years. It is therefore in this context that Tuesday October 8, the Novo Nordisk laboratory announced the marketing in France of its flagship drug against obesity, Wegovy. Conditions of use, price, side effects… we talk about it with Dr Guillaume Pourcher, former head of the Obesity Surgical Center at the Institut Mutualiste Montsouris and author of “Obesity, disease of the century: neither a fault nor an inevitability” (XO Éditions).
Wegovy, THE miracle drug to fight obesity?
Having just arrived in France, can Wegovy be the miracle cure for all individuals suffering from obesity? The answer doesn’t seem so simple, according to Dr. Pourcher’s explanations: “There is no miracle drug”even if treatments intended to combat obesity “are an opportunity for the sick and for the caregivers”. However, Wegovy, a star drug from the Danish laboratory Novo Nordisk, produces effects “very effective”continues the former head of the Obesity Surgical Center at the Institut Mutualiste Montsouris: “today in the Pharmacopoeia, we have not known such an effective drug”. A significant step forward, then?
Not quite, nuance Dr Guillaume Pourcher: immediately, “obesity disease specialists cannot prescribe these medications due to a limitation”. In question: the conditions required to be eligible are numerous and very strict. First, Wegovy is not available over the counter in pharmacies, but only by prescription. Even if renewals can be carried out by general practitioners, the first request for Wegovy must have been prescribed by doctors specializing in endocrinology-diabetology-nutrition or by holders of the specialized transversal training “Applied Nutrition”.
In addition, the treatment is only intended for people under 65 with a BMI of at least 35, that is to say when so-called severe obesity is noted. Then, Wegovy only intervenes as a second intention: in other words, it can only be obtained after the failure of initial nutritional and physical treatment. With this operation, the National Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM), which has issued these conditions of use having regard to the recommendations of the High Health Authority, wishes to avoid potential diversions of Wegovy for the purposes of ‘simple’ loss. of weight.
Expensive treatment, “very serious side effects”.
Beyond the uncompromising supervision of Wegovy, Dr Guillaume Pourcher specifies that this treatment is likely to cause “very serious side effects”. Among the most frequent, the former head of the Obesity Surgical Center at the Institut Mutualiste Montsouris cites the “digestive disorders”such as for example the “pancreatitis” or the “problems with stones in the gallbladderwhich require surgical intervention”. Wegovy can also cause “higher risk for people with a tendency to thyroid cancer” and among others, a “risk of depression”.
Currently, Wegovy “is not yet reimbursed”adds Dr Pourcher. Thus, for a box of four injections, it is necessary to count between 270 and 330 euros. For a medicine that “doesn’t work for everyone”it’s a big cost for the wallet! Therefore, this is the opportunity, for the former head of the Obesity Surgical Center at the Institut Mutualiste Montsouris, to recall that the “Obesity surgery is a treatment that works much better than all the drugs on the market today”. It remains to be seen whether the procedure for qualifying is not also as demanding as that of Wegovy…
“Obesity is not a fault, but a serious chronic illness” !
Currently, more than a billion people worldwide are obese.. A worrying situation, which Dr Guillaume Pourcher has continued to denounce for some time. “Obesity is not a fault, but a serious chronic illness!”, he insists into Jean-Jacques Bourdin’s microphone. For the former head of the Obesity Surgical Center at the Institut Mutualiste Montsouris, it is crucial to differentiate between “causes” and the “aggravating factors” obesity. Indeed, this confusion is often at the origin of the “stigma of the disease”which leads, in fact, to a “bad consideration” of what obesity represents.
In short: “behavior, junk food, lack of physical activity, sleep, poor management of emotions are aggravating factors and not causes” obesity, explains Dr Guillaume Pourcher. The causes of obesity are, for their part,“much more complex” and, most of the time, “genetic, hormonal or even microbiotic”. Likewise, the “psychological trauma” relates to a real cause of the “obesity disease” : in other words, he can “disregulate the functioning of the body and participate in the triggering of the disease”.
From now on, argues Dr Guillaume Pourcher, it is important to stop the trend “blame the patient who has this disease”and this for a very simple reason: “We cannot cure this disease. It kills!”. In this way, the former head of the Obesity Surgical Center concludes by recalling his constant struggle: advocate for obesity to finally be recognized as a chronic disease !
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