Obesity management medications: The way forward

Obesity is now widely recognized as a chronic progressive condition. The altered biological mechanisms that cause obesity frequently require long-term treatment, including pharmacotherapies or bariatric surgery. In recent decades, the pathophysiology of obesity has been understood to an extent that obesity management medication (OMM) discovery could be rationally pursued. Advances in defining the regulation of food intake and energy expenditure by molecular communication from peripheral organs to the brain led to the development of OMMs that appear capable of safely achieving scalable and sustained body weight loss. However, side effects, heterogeneous treatment responses, long-term metabolic adaptations, adherence, and other factors may limit the use of existing OMMs and justify the development of additional medications to improve the health of people living with obesity.