Dr. Paul Joyce

So it's known that obesity can cause up to, I think, around 18 different types of cancer.

And so obviously if we can reduce obesity...

within the population, then there's a dramatic opportunity to also reduce the rate of cancer.

And that's where it's quite difficult to disentangle what is caused by people losing weight versus what is caused by the drug.

There's both short-term and then there's long-term concerns, I think.

Short-term side effects are things like gastrointestinal side effects, so things like vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain.

They're the most common reasons why people stop taking these medications.

But then I guess there's the long-term side effects.

Obviously, I talked about you don't just lose body fat, you also lose muscle mass.

But then there's some quite dangerous side effects, things like pancreatitis, dangerous levels of inflammation within the pancreas.

And so that's been shown to be more prevalent in people that take these drugs.

And then there's some early signs, but I think it's still a lot to be proven around thyroid cancer.

So in preclinical studies, so studies that have been done in animals, they've shown that animals given these drugs have developed thyroid cancer over time.

And again, you know, that hasn't been shown in a human population yet, but I think, yeah, the jury is out on

do these drugs have long-lasting effects?

And with such a huge array of people now taking these drugs, I think in America, I think it's something like one in eight are now taking these drugs.

So within the next 10 to 20 years, we'll start to get a better understanding of those long-term effects.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think that's the concerning side of things.

There's lots of companies now online that are selling these drugs.