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Speaker 1: Farmacs seeking advice on whether to fund weight loss medications.

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Speaker 1: That's you know your we go vies and stuff. New

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Speaker 1: Zealand has the third highest adult obesity rate in the OECD.

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Speaker 1: One in three adults and one in eight kids are

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Speaker 1: classified as a beest. So is there a need for this?

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Speaker 1: Peter Shepherd as a molecular medicine professor at the University

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Speaker 1: of Auckland and joys me, now, good morning to your.

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Speaker 2: Pizza morning Andrew.

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Speaker 1: How useful do you reckon? These drugs are?

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Speaker 2: Oh? They are really effective. Drugs at are lowering weight

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Speaker 2: and improving the health outcomes that are associated with being overweight.

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Speaker 1: And with those figures which are quite horrific, third highest

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Speaker 1: adult obesity rate in the OECD, that means they're needed.

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Speaker 2: I think there really needs to be a solution that

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Speaker 2: actually works.

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Speaker 1: Yes, Now, we talked about this in the summer breakfast

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Speaker 1: and studies over the summer suggests the efficacy of this

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Speaker 1: drugs are short term. In other words, you take them,

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Speaker 1: you lose some weight. As soon as you go off

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Speaker 1: from the hunger comes back and the weight comes on.

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Speaker 1: So as a short term solution, would that be wasteful?

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Speaker 2: Farmac spender well that's what we do with all our

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Speaker 2: other drugs. Andrew, think about it. There will be a

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Speaker 2: lot of your listeners out there taking statins or you know,

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Speaker 2: other medications for their heart disease and for their blood pressure.

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Speaker 2: As soon as they go off them, they lose their

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Speaker 2: effect as well. But we use those, don't we. So

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Speaker 2: it's just the same thing in my mind.

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Speaker 1: Okay, In Australia they've announced with GOVI will be subsidized.

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Speaker 1: Would it makes sense for us to follow sweet suit?

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Speaker 1: Or are we different places?

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Speaker 2: Well, it'll depend on the cost and that'll be the

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Speaker 2: kicker here At the moment, I think it's probably a

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Speaker 2: little bit too expensive, but there are a whole lot

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Speaker 2: of generic versions or much cheaper versions coming down the

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Speaker 2: line from China and other places. So by this time

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Speaker 2: next year, I think we'll be in a position where

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Speaker 2: it is an affordable way to treat obesity.

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Speaker 1: Would it be a better solution to actually fund bariatric

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Speaker 1: surgery instead of these short term drugs so that the

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Speaker 1: most affected get treated.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, I fully agree with you on that one. We

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Speaker 2: do lots of surgery in this country for things like

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Speaker 2: knee and hap operation and that's a wonderful way to

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Speaker 2: spend money because it really helps people long term live

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Speaker 2: much healthier, more productive lives. We do twenty thirty thousand

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Speaker 2: of those a year in this country, but we only

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Speaker 2: do a few hundred bariatric surgeries because of the sort

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Speaker 2: of preconceptions and prejus is against obesity. So yes, more

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Speaker 2: bariatric surgery would also be a good investment.

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Speaker 1: All right, Peter, I, thank you for your time. Peter

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Speaker 1: is a molecular medicine professor at the University of Auckland.

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