One promising way to promote drug adherence and lifestyle change is to provide health well-being coaching (HWC) alongside GLP-1 prescriptions.
When adhered to, glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonist (GLP-1) prescriptions are a highly effective treatment for obesity, with clinical trials showing GLP-1 treatment inducing weight losses of 10%-25% over a 1-2-year period. However, GLP-1s do not cure obesity but treat it much like blood pressure medication attenuates hypertension: remove the medication and the disease returns. In other words, a lifetime of GLP-1 prescription is to be expected for long-term effectiveness.
Despite this, patient adherence to GLP-1 regimens is low, with more than 50% of patients stopping treatment within the first 3 months and only 33% still adhering to their prescription at 1 year. Side effects, cost, food addiction, and simply missing the joy of eating are among the reasons for lack of adherence. Hence, the common belief that GLP-1 medications are a miracle cure for obesity may be greatly exaggerated. Additionally, when approving GLP-1s for obesity treatment, the Food and Drug Administration specified these medications were to be used in addition to a reduced caloric diet and increased physical activity. However, in practice, patients are generally not supported to adopt a healthy lifestyle or to engage in lifestyle medicine when GLP-1s are prescribed.
Neil F. Gordon, MD, PhD, MPH, and CEO of the population management company INTERVENT International claims that patients need far more than brief advice or a brochure from their physician to successfully change their behaviour. Instead, health well-being coaching should be implemented to promote health via lifestyle that can be used in combination with GLP-1 prescriptions.
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