Weight Jab Concerns Raised At Sussex Health Board

People are buying weight loss drugs online but the cut-price deals may not be what they seem to be, health chiefs warned.

The NHS has recently started prescribing the miracle cures – commonly known as Ozempic, WeGovy and Mounjaro – but not everyone who wants them meets the strict criteria.

NHS bosses are weighing up the costs of obesity, the costs of the new drugs and the implications of people buying powerful medicines privately without proper clinical supervision.

And they are still learning about potential side-effects, what happens when people stop using weight-loss drugs and the flood of cheap or fake supplies – often bought online – targeting burgeoning demand.

The various concerns emerged at a meeting of Brighton and Hove City Council’s Health and Wellbeing Board at Hove Town Hall on Tuesday (22 July).

Board members discussed the annual report of the new director of public health which focused on “a whole city approach to healthy weight”.

The board was told that the annual report was a legal requirement although this was the first one since 2022.

It looked back 20 years to TV chef Jamie Oliver’s campaign against turkey twizzlers and unhealthy school dinners even as McDonald’s faces resistance to its plans for a drive-through burger bar in Old Shoreham Road, Hove.

The new director of public health Caroline Vass said in her report:

“More than one in two adults in the city are obese or overweight, increasing the risk of diet and weight-related diseases including diabetes, some cancer, heart disease, joint problems and so much more.

“This impacts on the health and social care system, quality of life, economy and everyday life in the city.

“The impact of covid-19 on our lifestyles and weight, alongside a ‘cost of living crisis’, brought challenges to Brighton and Hove where levels of healthy weight have been better than many other areas in England in recent years.”

A chart suggested that the covid restrictions coincided with unhealthy lifestyle changes that significantly reduced the number of people with a healthy weight in Brighton and Hove.

Anecdotal evidence highlighted a boom in people eating takeaways and drinking more alcohol at home while many people exercised less although others took the chance to exercise more.

NHS Sussex chair Stephen Lightfoot broached the elephant in the room, telling the board that he was worried about people buying weight-loss medication online.

Weight-loss drugs were not mentioned in the report although the Labour Health Secretary Wes Streeting has spoken several times over the past year about how they could help tackle obesity.

Mr Lightfoot said:

“There’s no doubt that weight-loss medication can have a role to play.

“But I do worry about people buying these privately without proper medical supervision and the inappropriate use of weight-loss medications.

“It seems to me to be very popular at the moment. I wonder whether we need to think about the responsible use of weight-loss medication as part of an overall plan such as this.”

Ms Vass said that there was a place for weight-loss drugs, adding:

“We’re learning more and more about the impact of them and the risks and what happens when people stop using them, what happens when people are accessing very cheap medications online, that may not be exactly what they purport to be, and the issues associated with that.

“How we bring in these products, which are out there right now, into a healthy weight approach and a more integrated way of managing the data coming through thick and fast about the evidence and impact, it’s something we need to keep our eye on.”

The annual report highlighted conventional answers – a variety of local initiatives to help more people eat more healthy food, which often costs more than unhealthy food, and to exercise more.

And it noted that although the proportion of overweight or obese adults in Brighton and Hove was almost three in five, the local population was among the leanest in the country.

Previous public health initiatives have helped to bring down the rate of teen pregnancies, increased the number of people giving up smoking and improved the take up of some types of screening.