The five medications approved for chronic management of obesity all have been shown to be safe and effective in clinical trials. But they have different mechanisms of action, different side effect profiles, and different warnings and precautions, Dr. Garvey noted.
Understanding the pharmacology of all five drugs is important to help a specific patient achieve the best outcomes.
“There’s no drug that can be recommended, in a hierarchical sense, as being better than any others across the board in all patients,” Dr. Garvey explained. “We really need to individualize therapy based on their side effect profile and their types of complications that present with the patient.”