Simple Online Pharmacy 2024 GLP-1 Weight Loss Survey - Why Patients Chose GLP-1 Weight Care Medications & Other Methods They Have Tried
Methods Patients Have Tried and Motivations to Lose Weight
Weight loss medication is usually not the first method people try to lose weight. As such, we asked our patients what they had tried previously. A significantly high proportion of respondents had tried the following methods in the past:
- Calorie restriction (76%) - for Wegovy patients this was as high as 83%
- Exercise (70%)
- Weight loss groups (61%)
The NHS website for treatment of obesity suggests “The best way to treat obesity is to eat a healthy reduced-calorie diet and exercise regularly”. It also states “You may benefit from joining a local weight management programme with group meetings or online support. Your GP can tell you about these” (from https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/obesity/).
However, our data suggests that for the vast majority of our patients that are living with obesity, these methods do not work. The majority of our patients have been living with obesity for over 5 years, and have unsuccessfully tried all of regularly suggested methods of weight loss.
A significant proportion of patients had considered more extreme, surgical methods to lose weight. In the higher BMI categories of a BMI of 35 and above, 25% had considered bariatric surgery through the NHS.
The average cost of bariatric surgery to the NHS is around £4000 - £7000 per operation, but is typically only recommended for higher obesity ranges of 35+. For the group surveyed that are within this range (13,745 patients), if all of that group had followed through with bariatric surgery, the cost to the NHS could have been around £55-96m. This does not include the ongoing aftercare required for someone that has undergone this surgery.
Influences on Developing Healthy Habits
Weight loss medications are not a "silver bullet" treatment; maintaining weight loss comes from changing your habits, eating well, and being aware of how you are using your energy. Your "weight loss toolbox" should consist of nutrition, mindset and movement.
We noted that patients agreed that not only did using weight loss medication make them more aware of what they were eating, but they also noticed that moving and getting active was easier after losing weight.
These additional comments further solidify that weight care medication can help with all these aspects:
- “Finding exercise easier than before as carrying less weight”
- “It helped me out of a depressive period and gave me confidence to go to the gym”
- “Feel fitter and can exercise more”
Another part in this toolbox is nutrition - patients need access to healthy food choices.
We asked participants about factors that influenced the food that they bought. It transpired that price, at 38% was selected as the most important factor, and an even greater proportion selected price in the higher BMI category: a staggering 47% of those with BMI 40+.
When asked what would help them make healthier buying choices, more affordable healthy food options came up as the highest selected option, with 68% selecting this as the factor that would make the biggest difference to them making healthier buying choices, followed by 65% selecting “Discounts on healthy food”. With inflation still being a major concern, we asked people: How much do you agree with this statement: Inflated food prices make it more difficult for me to afford healthy food.
- 66.5% agreed
- 34% strongly agreed
However, when asked How much do you agree with this statement: I am influenced to buy unhealthy foods by offers such as "buy one, get one free".
- 37% agreed
- 17% strongly agreed
All this data suggests that rather than focusing on preventing promotions of unhealthy food, as the Government had proposed with the ban on Buy One, Get One Free offers on unhealthy options, the more impactful action to take is to find ways to make healthy food more affordable.
When asked about other factors that made it hard to buy healthy food, the most commonly selected was “being tired” at 40%. This is interesting when compared to the improvement in sleep that people found from losing weight, and suggests that there is a strong link between healthy sleep and managing / losing weight.
As we have seen, weight care medications are not cheap; even still, some patients opt to go private rather than trying to access it through the NHS. As such, these patients may have to scale back on some expenses to afford their medication. When asked what they gave up to afford their medication, the top 3 items were:
- 47% Takeaways / fast food
- 39% Meals out
- 39% Nights out
Whilst the price of medication was raised as something patients were concerned about, they are able to sacrifice on unhealthy food / lifestyle choices to save the money they need to afford their medication.
Preference on Length of Treatment
Some weight loss medications can be used long-term to support weight loss, if patient history suggests this may be beneficial. When patients were asked how long they wanted to stay on the medication for, and were given an option of selecting the number of years, ranging from 1 to 10, we saw responses cluster to the following years:
Below are a few individual quotes to illustrate sustainability of weight loss.
- "I have changed my habits and attitude to food. I may need medication to lose more weight but I’m sustaining my weight loss so far”
- “Weight loss medication helped me lose the weight and helped with my portion control and essentially changed my lifestyle. I have continued to lose weight and maintained a healthy body.”
Patients are comfortable that they will have to stay on this medication for a significant period of time. This supports the World Health Organisation’s classification of obesity as a chronic condition.
There will, of course, also be some concerns for patients. We wanted to know what the main concerns were for patients when they were considering whether to use weight care medications. The results are outlined here:
It is worth mentioning here that there was a slight discrepancy between the brackets. While over all brackets combined, price was the biggest worry, the BMI 30-35 cohort was the only cohort to indicate that they are more worried about putting weight back on after stopping medication, rather than price. For Wegovy patients, there was more concern about continuity of supply, than putting weight back on.
This suggests that priorities and worries change between brackets - affordability of the medication is not as high on the list as sustaining the weight loss journey.
It should be noted that information was not controlled for whether the patients were still on weight care medications or not, which may skew these results.
Whilst receiving fake medication features lower down the list at 20%, there has been considerable media coverage on this. We have the following advice for anyone looking to get access to weight care medication, to ensure they are receiving genuine medication. If members of the public are concerned that they have received counterfeit medication, there is information available on Novo Nordisk's website on how to report this.
Firstly, check that you are being supplied the medication by a UK registered pharmacy. The pharmacy should display somewhere on their website their pharmacy number, and you can check this with the General Pharmaceutical Council on their website. The GPhC regulates pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and pharmacies in Great Britain. They work to assure and improve standards of care for people using pharmacy services, and to ensure UK registered pharmacies are providing a safe service. UK registered pharmacies should only use reputable, regulated wholesalers for supply of medication, which ensures the medicine is safe, and genuine.
If the provider doesn’t have a GPhC number, then you don’t know where they are getting their medication from and whether they are being regulated or that medications are authentic.
Secondly, check that the prescribers prescribing the medication are licensed to do so in the UK. If you don’t have details on the prescribers, ask for them and you should be able to check this against the General Medical Council (GMC); if they are a practising medical doctor in the UK and if they are a prescribing pharmacist, you can check the GPhC register.
Thirdly, go with a provider that understands medicated weight care. The medication doesn't just work on its own, it needs to be accompanied by a healthy diet, and physical activity, and patients should be supported by the right holistic care. Simple Online Pharmacy have diagnosed, prescribed and dispensed weight care medication already to over 120,000 patients. We have built a supporting app for our patients, renu, which condenses our decades of clinical experience from our team of experts, and supports our patients on making the necessary lifestyle changes across mindset, movement and nutrition.
Simple Online Pharmacy is a regulated pharmacy (pharmacy number 9011287) and only uses UK registered GPs.