Anti-Obesity Medications: Emerging Pharmacological Advances and Drug Discovery Perspectives

Abstract

The treatment of disorders including hypertension, adult-onset diabetes, and high cholesterol that are intimately linked to obesity has come a long way in the previous 50 years. However, therapy for obesity has proved difficult, with anti-obesity drugs (AOMs) generally failing to deliver on their promises and raising concerns about their safety. In this article, we present a brief review of AOM evolution, highlighting key milestones and discussing the challenges that still need to be overcome. Recent developments, such as a deeper appreciation for the molecular gut-brain interface, have sparked the search for next-generation AOMs that show promise for causing substantial and long-lasting weight reduction without compromising patient safety. In the United States alone, the prevalence of obesity has increased by a factor of four since 1975, with more than a third of adults and twenty per cent of teenagers being classified as overweight or obese. Obesity raises the risk of several chronic diseases, including type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancers of the colon, oesophagus, liver, rectum, pancreas, gallbladder, and kidney. Several major therapeutic targets have caught the interest of the scientific community despite several failures. They are indicative of the current state of the art in identifying and progressing new medication candidates to human testing. With obesity as the major treatment goal, research into four target areas (leptin, ghrelin, mitochondrial uncouplers, and growth differentiation factor 15 [GDF15]) was launched and progressed.