The global figures for obesity are little short of startling: the World Health Organisation reports that there are more than 1.9 billion overweight adults — 39 per cent of the adult population.
Of these, 650 million — or 13 per cent of the adult population — are obese, meaning their body mass index (BMI) is at least 30.
“When we look at obesity, it’s a growing public health problem,” said Dr Richard Holt, professor in diabetes and endocrinology at the University of Southampton in the UK.
“The number of people now overweight or obese is getting larger and larger. Being overweight is associated with significant medical problems as well as social problems, such as stigma.”
But could the new drug tirzepatide be the answer?
What is tirzepatide and how did it perform in clinical trials?
Produced by the American drug producer Eli Lilly, tirzepatide decreases appetite by mimicking the effect of hormones released in the body after a person eats.
On Thursday, Eli Lilly released the results of clinical trials involving 2,539 patients, some of whom were given 5 milligram, 10mg or 15mg treatment regimes of the drug.
For the lowest dose, average weight loss was 15 per cent of body weight; in the 10mg group, it was 19.5 per cent; and in the 15mg group, 20.9 per cent. Among patients given a placebo, average weight loss was 3.1 per cent of body weight.
In a statement announcing the results, Dr Jeff Emmick, Eli Lilly’s vice president of product development, said the drug was the first to achieve an average weight loss of more than 20 per cent in a late-stage trial.
Almost two thirds of those on the highest dose lost at least 20 per cent of their body weight.
How does this compare to lifestyle changes?
Dr Holt said that diet and lifestyle management — trying to reduce a person’s calorie intake and increase their energy expenditure — is often the first line of treatment for significantly overweight people.
“There are very, very many diets advertised for the management of obesity. It’s probably fair to say none of them are particularly effective if you look across the whole of the population,” he said.
“We might expect weight loss of up to 5 per cent with lifestyle management on a population basis. It’s not to say lifestyle is not useful; some people respond very well to lifestyle.
“We would expect two out of 10 to lose a significant amount of weight with lifestyle. That leaves eight out of 10 who haven’t lost a significant amount.”
With lifestyle changes, people might find it straightforward to lose weight, Mr Holt said, but harder to maintain that weight loss over time.
How does tirzepatide compare to other drugs or surgery?
After lifestyle and dietary changes, the next level of treatment is drug therapy, of which there are “very few licensed for the management of obesity”, Mr Holt said.
Obesity drugs have often been launched only to be withdrawn because of “significant side effects”.
Aside from tirzepatide, another key drug is semaglutide, which acts in a similar way. Clinical trial results released a year ago showed it cut body weight by about 15 per cent and produced only modest side effects. One third of patients lost more than 20 per cent of their body weight.
At the time, it was described as “a game-changer” by one researcher who co-wrote a paper outlining the results, achieving weight reductions “no other drug has come close to”.
Semaglutide is being used by clinicians to help people lose weight, but the latest results suggest tirzepatide could be even more effective. With both drugs, side effects appear to be modest.
Regardless, Dr Holt said he didn't think the drug should be used for everyone.
“Lifestyle interventions are where we should start. With people with more serious [obesity] or who have tried lifestyle changes and these have been unsuccessful, drug therapies are a successful option,” he said.
“This would be a useful treatment to include in the treatment armamentarium.”
The latest drugs offer a “major, major step forward in the amount of weight loss”.
Beyond drugs, the next treatment is obesity or bariatric surgery, which include having a gastric band placed around the stomach so that the patient feels full after eating a smaller amount.
Dr Holt said the results achieved by tirzepatide were “the sort of level you might expect to see with people with bariatric surgery”.
Prevention is better than cure
While drug treatments are improving, preventing obesity from developing in the first place is often seen as more effective than trying to achieve weight loss after a person has become obese.
“Reduction is really difficult because the brain is structured in a way that changing your behaviour takes a long time to settle in your brain,” said Dr Antje Hebestreit, a nutritional epidemiologist at the Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology.
“Once you already have these behaviours leading to obesity, to really get rid of them takes a long time … This is why prevention is the favourite [approach].”
Dr Hebestreit said that some ways to prevent obesity in adults, such as using mobile phone apps that monitor a person’s diet, physical activity and sleep patterns, may reduce the risk of obesity by 40 to 75 per cent if users adhere to the recommendations.
Interventions are best started early on, she added, especially during childhood.
Parents have a big influence on whether their children become obese, she said, with the mother’s BMI and education level linked to the risk of obesity in her children.
White hydrogen: Naturally occurring hydrogen
Chromite: Hard, metallic mineral containing iron oxide and chromium oxide
Ultramafic rocks: Dark-coloured rocks rich in magnesium or iron with very low silica content
Ophiolite: A section of the earth’s crust, which is oceanic in nature that has since been uplifted and exposed on land
Olivine: A commonly occurring magnesium iron silicate mineral that derives its name for its olive-green yellow-green colour
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Other workplace saving schemes
- The UAE government announced a retirement savings plan for private and free zone sector employees in 2023.
- Dubai’s savings retirement scheme for foreign employees working in the emirate’s government and public sector came into effect in 2022.
- National Bonds unveiled a Golden Pension Scheme in 2022 to help private-sector foreign employees with their financial planning.
- In April 2021, Hayah Insurance unveiled a workplace savings plan to help UAE employees save for their retirement.
- Lunate, an Abu Dhabi-based investment manager, has launched a fund that will allow UAE private companies to offer employees investment returns on end-of-service benefits.
Results
United States beat UAE by three wickets
United States beat Scotland by 35 runs
UAE v Scotland – no result
United States beat UAE by 98 runs
Scotland beat United States by four wickets
Fixtures
Sunday, 10am, ICC Academy, Dubai - UAE v Scotland
Admission is free
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
The biog
Favourite food: Fish and seafood
Favourite hobby: Socialising with friends
Favourite quote: You only get out what you put in!
Favourite country to visit: Italy
Favourite film: Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
Family: We all have one!
CONFIRMED%20LINE-UP
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Another way to earn air miles
In addition to the Emirates and Etihad programmes, there is the Air Miles Middle East card, which offers members the ability to choose any airline, has no black-out dates and no restrictions on seat availability. Air Miles is linked up to HSBC credit cards and can also be earned through retail partners such as Spinneys, Sharaf DG and The Toy Store.
An Emirates Dubai-London round-trip ticket costs 180,000 miles on the Air Miles website. But customers earn these ‘miles’ at a much faster rate than airline miles. Adidas offers two air miles per Dh1 spent. Air Miles has partnerships with websites as well, so booking.com and agoda.com offer three miles per Dh1 spent.
“If you use your HSBC credit card when shopping at our partners, you are able to earn Air Miles twice which will mean you can get that flight reward faster and for less spend,” says Paul Lacey, the managing director for Europe, Middle East and India for Aimia, which owns and operates Air Miles Middle East.
Panipat
Director Ashutosh Gowariker
Produced Ashutosh Gowariker, Rohit Shelatkar, Reliance Entertainment
Cast Arjun Kapoor, Sanjay Dutt, Kriti Sanon, Mohnish Behl, Padmini Kolhapure, Zeenat Aman
Rating 3 /5 stars
EA Sports FC 25
Developer: EA Vancouver, EA Romania
Publisher: EA Sports
Consoles: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4&5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S
Rating: 3.5/5
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
How Tesla’s price correction has hit fund managers
Investing in disruptive technology can be a bumpy ride, as investors in Tesla were reminded on Friday, when its stock dropped 7.5 per cent in early trading to $575.
It recovered slightly but still ended the week 15 per cent lower and is down a third from its all-time high of $883 on January 26. The electric car maker’s market cap fell from $834 billion to about $567bn in that time, a drop of an astonishing $267bn, and a blow for those who bought Tesla stock late.
The collapse also hit fund managers that have gone big on Tesla, notably the UK-based Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust and Cathie Wood’s ARK Innovation ETF.
Tesla is the top holding in both funds, making up a hefty 10 per cent of total assets under management. Both funds have fallen by a quarter in the past month.
Matt Weller, global head of market research at GAIN Capital, recently warned that Tesla founder Elon Musk had “flown a bit too close to the sun”, after getting carried away by investing $1.5bn of the company’s money in Bitcoin.
He also predicted Tesla’s sales could struggle as traditional auto manufacturers ramp up electric car production, destroying its first mover advantage.
AJ Bell’s Russ Mould warns that many investors buy tech stocks when earnings forecasts are rising, almost regardless of valuation. “When it works, it really works. But when it goes wrong, elevated valuations leave little or no downside protection.”
A Tesla correction was probably baked in after last year’s astonishing share price surge, and many investors will see this as an opportunity to load up at a reduced price.
Dramatic swings are to be expected when investing in disruptive technology, as Ms Wood at ARK makes clear.
Every week, she sends subscribers a commentary listing “stocks in our strategies that have appreciated or dropped more than 15 per cent in a day” during the week.
Her latest commentary, issued on Friday, showed seven stocks displaying extreme volatility, led by ExOne, a leader in binder jetting 3D printing technology. It jumped 24 per cent, boosted by news that fellow 3D printing specialist Stratasys had beaten fourth-quarter revenues and earnings expectations, seen as good news for the sector.
By contrast, computational drug and material discovery company Schrödinger fell 27 per cent after quarterly and full-year results showed its core software sales and drug development pipeline slowing.
Despite that setback, Ms Wood remains positive, arguing that its “medicinal chemistry platform offers a powerful and unique view into chemical space”.
In her weekly video view, she remains bullish, stating that: “We are on the right side of change, and disruptive innovation is going to deliver exponential growth trajectories for many of our companies, in fact, most of them.”
Ms Wood remains committed to Tesla as she expects global electric car sales to compound at an average annual rate of 82 per cent for the next five years.
She said these are so “enormous that some people find them unbelievable”, and argues that this scepticism, especially among institutional investors, “festers” and creates a great opportunity for ARK.
Only you can decide whether you are a believer or a festering sceptic. If it’s the former, then buckle up.
Match info
Arsenal 0
Manchester City 2
Sterling (14'), Bernardo Silva (64')
The specs
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Power: Combined output 920hp
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Transmission: 8-speed dual-clutch automatic
Fuel consumption: 11.2L/100km
On sale: Now, deliveries expected later in 2025
Price: expected to start at Dh1,432,000
Ferrari 12Cilindri specs
Engine: naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12
Power: 819hp
Torque: 678Nm at 7,250rpm
Price: From Dh1,700,000
Available: Now
