Psychologists recently have gained new insights into the factors affecting the success of anti-obesity drugs.
Dr. Amelia Hollywood of Surrey University, UK, explains, “Weight-loss medication is widely prescribed, but with very mixed results. Many patients either do not lose weight or go on to regain any weight lost. We felt it was important to look at the experiences of these people who do not lose weight, or do not maintain the weight lost in the long term with this drug.”
Her team interviewed 10 women who were prescribed the weight-loss medication orlistat (Xenical). It acts on the gastrointestinal system and works by reducing fat absorption in the gut, which is eliminated in bowel movements.
The 10 women were chosen because they had put on weight over the 18 months since they started taking orlistat. These women saw their failure to lose weight as “an inevitable part of their identity,” and they had a “self-fulfilling belief that they would be perpetual dieters.”
In their interviews, the women blamed the mechanics of the drug, highlighted the barriers to weight loss, and talked about other weight-loss methods which previously had not worked.
“Their beliefs about themselves and about the difficulty of losing weight lay behind the failure of the anti-obesity drugs,” said Hollywood. She presented the study at the Annual Conference of the 2012 British Psychological Society’s Division of Health Psychology in Liverpool, UK.
At the conference she stated, “Our research suggests that prescribing this type of drug should be accompanied by information that reinforces the reality of sticking to the low-fat diet that is necessary to avoid the unpleasant consequences of the drug, such as anal leakage, and that these ‘side effects’ should not be attributed to the drug but to the individual’s eating behavior.
“Unless we get the psychology right and change people’s beliefs about themselves, their eating and the way the drug works, this medication is often going to produce disappointing results.”
Hollywood added, “We hope our research will encourage the doctors to prescribe this medication more wisely and to provide patients with more support while they are taking it.”