Abstract
Obesity has become a worldwide pandemic in the last thirty years. Its treatment is primarily based on the life-style changes that, however, often fail in the long-term run.
For the next decade, major perspectives in the successful obesity treatment include, in addition to bariatric surgery, a long-term treatment with anti-obesity drugs, in particular the ones that in addition to weight reduction also directly affect obesity-related pathologies. This paper summarizes current possibilities of obesity pharmacotherapy including its indication, proper selection of patients and side effects of anti-obesity drugs.
It also reviews the studies describing long-term efficacy and safety of anti-obesity drugs. Despite the availability of efficacious and safe anti-obesity drugs, these therapies are not even partially covered by health insurance.
The costs of anti-obesity drugs are for the majority of patients with obesity unacceptably high. The actual unavailability of anti-obesity drugs for patients with obesity has significant health-economic consequences.
Limited use of these medications that have evidence-based data supporting their efficacy, contributes to high prevalence of obesity-related pathologies with subsequent low treatment efficacy and high treatment costs. We believe that at least partial reimbursement of anti-obesity drugs from general health insurance, in patients with verified compliance and under clearly defined conditions, is a necessary step to improve this situation which could lead to clearly economically effective results.