Obesity: An Epidemic in Need of Drug Discovery

The prevalence of obesity is widely anticipated to continue to heighten the burden of obesity-related morbidity and mortality in the coming era. The global rise of obesity has serious health effects. Over two-thirds of United States adults are overweight or obese; nearly 35% are obese. Despite extensive public health efforts, obesity prevalence among both adults and children in the United States remains high and largely unchanged over the past decade while rates of weight counseling among primary care physicians have significantly declined.A very wide range of obesity-related co-morbidities are becoming more prevalent in the population, and this will have serious consequences for the health of these individuals, and for the health care economies that will have to fund the costs of this increased burden of disease. The greatest contributor to this is undoubtedly type 2 diabetes, closely followed by the related problems of dyslipidemia and hypertension which lead to greater risk ofmacrovascular diseases, such as myocardial infarction, stroke, and peripheral vascular disease.