The reason diets are so commercially successful is not unrelated to them being so physiologically unsuccessful. While you can lose weight on a diet, studies repeatedly show you won’t keep it off.
Whatever fad diet you choose, 12 months after starting almost all adherents have given up, returned to their pre-diet weight – and are looking for a new diet.
Hence the excitement about the new class of weight-loss drugs. Obesity has huge costs, and relying on willpower alone to defeat it has failed.• Weight-loss jab Wegovy reduces heart attack and stroke risk by a fifth
When people take Wegovy, a drug based somewhat improbably on reptilian venom, it acts as a slow-release version of an appetite-suppressing hormone. People simply aren’t as hungry anymore.
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