John Simon, a teenager who had a bariatric surgery in 2022, walks along the hallway of his school in Los Angeles, Monday, March 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
American kids are increasingly prescribing a Wegovy drug for weight reduction, seeing that increasingly households and doctors generally tend to trust this drug for younger human beings laid low with weight problems.
According to Reuters, final 12 months the average indicator of the wide variety of young people starting with this drug elevated with the aid of 50% to the level of 14.Eight recipes for every a hundred thousand teens.
For assessment, in 2023 – within the first yr, whilst Wegovy became available for children aged 12 years and older, having symptoms for its use, this indicator become nine.9 recipes for each a hundred thousand youth. In the first three months of 2025, the spread of Wegovy for the treatment of obesity in teens persevered to grow, accomplishing 17.3 new recipes consistent with one hundred thousand teenagers.
For its evaluation, Truveta studied electronic medical facts of 1.3 million sufferers inside the United States elderly 12 to 17 years. The analysis did no longer consist of other GLP-1 tablets, consisting of Ozempic and Zepbound, on the grounds that they had been still authorised for the treatment of obesity in youth.
About eight million teens within the USA, or 23% of human beings aged 12 to 19 years, be afflicted by weight problems – compared with five% in 1980. Obesity at a young age extensively will increase the risk of persistent and reducing states, inclusive of kind 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and liver disorder.
Nevertheless, not all doctors comply with prescribe GLP-1 arrangements to their teenage sufferers, because the long-time period protection of these pills for children for the duration of sexual improvement is unknown, and remedy may additionally require limitless. In addition, insurance plans within the United States regularly do now not cowl any treatment of weight problems.
