![\"An](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/f45b4b140a6381f88a561add4d6afd0cdf61e6f7\/0_0_5000_3999\/master\/5000.jpg?width=460&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=0da41f5579a1da1b739bb8de85cbfb6c\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nAn Eli Lilly spokesperson said: \u201cRising urbanisation, sedentary lifestyles, and changing diets have made weight management a growing public health priority. This convergence of high unmet need, growing awareness and improving access to innovative therapies makes India a significant market for weight loss drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The drug company Novo Nordisk is also pushing for a share of the market. It launched Ozempic this month at the competitively low price of 8,800 rupees (\u00a373) for four jabs a month, compared with the 14,000 rupees (\u00a3115) monthly cost of Mounjaro \u2013 prices beyond the reach of the average Indian household.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But by March next year, the drug company patents on many of these semaglutide drugs is due to expire in India. This will open the market to domestic companies who are developing their own cheaper versions, which are expected to flood the market and make prices more affordable. Experts predict the market for weight loss drugs in India will hit $150bn (\u00a3112bn) a year by the end of the decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many medical professionals and patients have hailed the wide access to these jabs as a long-overdue necessity for India, which is in the grips of a surge in obesity and diabetes that threatens to overwhelm the country\u2019s already underfunded and overburdened healthcare system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to experts, diabetes and obesity are likely to become the biggest killers in India by 2030. A recent global analysis found that India had roughly 212 million adults with diabetes, accounting for more than a quarter of the global total.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A study by the Lancet found India had about 180 million adults who were overweight or obese in 2021 \u2013 and by 2050, this could increase to 450 million, equating to almost a third of India\u2019spredicted adult population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mohit Bhandari, one of India\u2019s leading bariatric surgeons, said he believed that the official numbers of people with diabetes and obesity in India were a \u201csignificant undercount due to poor data collection\u201d and estimated they were more than 10% higher than government records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, Bhandari is among those urging caution at the widespread and unregulated use of weight loss drugs, which he said were already being abused and mis-prescribed with possible long-term consequences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe GLP-1 drugs already very important for India, they\u2019re more than welcome,\u201d he said. \u201cHowever, there are very significant problems and caveats to this. These jabs should be properly controlled by the government.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bhandari warned of the risks of allowing the drugs to be prescribed by pharmacists and GPs, many of whom are connected to certain chemist shops and benefit financially from putting patients on these jabs. The jabs are also increasingly available in gyms and beauty clinics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere needs to be rigorous screening and check-ups of patients being put on these drugs,\u201d Bhandari said. \u201cThey cause a lot of<\/a> muscle loss<\/a>, they can cause pancreatitis, gallstones, even blindness in some patients<\/a> with certain conditions, so this regulation is crucial.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He called on the government to limit who can prescribe the drugs to a board of specialist doctors who would put patients on a long-term programme. \u201cNo other country will have people taking these drugs on the same scale as in India,\u201d he said. \u201cIt means the scale of complications could get very high if there\u2019s no strict discipline in how they are given out to patients. The drugs are good but only in safe hands.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Vidhi Dua, 36, has diabetes and had struggled with obesity for most of her life. She was prescribed Mounjaro and began taking it in September when her weight reached 95kg (14st).<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ve tried so many things before this but I\u2019ve never been able to get my weight down,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m hopeful this will work and I can finally get off insulin but it\u2019s not easy, there are very difficult side effects on the stomach and the muscles. I think it\u2019s worrying this has become the latest fad just for cosmetic weight loss. I don\u2019t think people understand the impact they have on the body.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anoop Misra, one of India\u2019s most prominent endocrinologists working at Fortis hospital in Delhi, echoed the warnings. Misra said that poor dietary habits, sedentary lifestyles and environmental pollution were likely to be the key drivers of the surge in diabetes and obesity in India, which is evident in the affluent urban elite and poorer rural communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Misra said he was seeing an unparalleled demand for the drugs and was now prescribing them to three to seven patients a day, after thorough counselling. He predicted that once the non-patented versions are approved for sale next year, India will become one of the world\u2019s biggest and cheapest markets for GLP-1 drugs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nonetheless, he emphasised that treating the \u201cnationwide epidemic\u201d of obesity and diabetes required widespread lifestyle changes and education, and weight loss jabs were only part of the solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThese drugs can help, but they can not solve India\u2019s obesity and diabetes crisis,\u201d he said. \u201cFor most people, the foundation must remain nutrition education, healthier diets, exercise, and affordable weight loss medications when necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA worrying trend is people seeking these drugs simply because they repeatedly default on diet and exercise. Medication cannot replace lifestyle change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Misra said that there were still significant challenges ahead for India in its battle with obesity and diabetes, many of them cultural.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMany women tell me that if they stop preparing the calorie-dense, oil-laden dishes their husbands prefer, it leads to anger and conflict,\u201d he said. \u201cThis shows how difficult it is to change dietary patterns in Indian households \u2013 even when families know the health risks.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" India\u2019s leading doctors have warned of the dangers of an unregulated boom in weight loss injections, and emphasised they are not a magic pill to solve the country\u2019s growing epidemic of diabetes and obesity. Demand for appetite-suppressing drugs such as Mounjaro, Wegovy and Ozempic has surged since they were introduced into the Indian market this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":48185,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[4836,2980,8178,10767,8440,7396,12326,12257,11337,6999,13076,10739,5257,5927,11273,6144,423,9983,12310,6738,5787,2264,1132,12634,6825,6663,9246,12773,5440,8342,10742,6998,5441,13228,10917,9374,12103,10390,5646,11625,2278,9030,10851,7858,12724,10516,12723,5320,10415,36,594],"class_list":["post-48184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-fitness","tag-access","tag-blindness","tag-bloomberg","tag-conflict","tag-crisis","tag-data","tag-decade","tag-delhi","tag-demand","tag-diabetes","tag-discipline","tag-display","tag-doctors","tag-drivers","tag-drug","tag-drugs","tag-education","tag-epidemic","tag-exercise","tag-families","tag-flood","tag-government","tag-gps","tag-health","tag-hospital","tag-households","tag-improving","tag-increase","tag-india","tag-indian","tag-market","tag-obesity","tag-oil","tag-patients","tag-poor","tag-population","tag-price","tag-prices","tag-priority","tag-professionals","tag-public-health","tag-success","tag-sugar","tag-tell-me","tag-undia","tag-wegovy","tag-weight-loss-jabs","tag-women","tag-work","tag-world","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48184"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48186,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48184\/revisions\/48186"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Wegovy](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/34635020f3ecd891f803370ea69d399312aca919\/333_0_3333_2667\/master\/3333.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none\")
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