\n Health board bosses are looking into costings around giving Mounjaro to obese patients whose health they believe could benefit from the slimming jab.\n<\/p>\n
\n The move comes after\u00a0senior officials at NHS England gave GPs permission to issue the drug to 220,000 severely overweight people with associated health problems over the next three years.\n<\/p>\n
\n In the first year of the programme, the drug will be offered to people with a body mass index (BMI) score of over 40 who have at least four other health problems linked to obesity such as type 2 diabetes; high blood pressure; heart disease and obstructive sleep apnoea.\n<\/p>\n
\n Mounjaro, also known as tirzepatide,\u00a0works by regulating the user\u2019s appetite by mimicking a naturally produced hormone called glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1). When we eat, GLP-1 is released and signals sent to the brain to reduce the feeling of hunger.\n<\/p>\n
\n Currently patients in East Renfrewshire\u00a0can only access the injections through a specialist weight service or at a pharmacy, where the jabs\u00a0cost around \u00a3209 per month.\n<\/p>\n
\n Initially developed for the management of type 2 diabetes, the medication has been licensed in the UK for obesity treatment since November 2024, earning acclaim for its effectiveness in helping with rapid and substantial weight loss.\n<\/p>\n
\n Freedom of Information requests show that 5,866 people are currently being seen by specialist weight loss services in Scotland, but doctors say the number of people who would benefit from a weight loss drug is far higher.\n<\/p>\n
\n After the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) granted approval, there was concern that not all health boards had a weight management service model to support the recommendations – and that the potential level of uptake, along with ongoing supply issues, could pose a challenge for budgets.\n<\/p>\n
\n Any patients being prescribed the drugs on the NHS would need to see a specialist before starting the injections.\n<\/p>\n
\n Professor Naveed Sattar, from Glasgow University, is chair of the UK government’s Obesity Mission.\n<\/p>\n
\n He says that when such breakthrough drugs comes along – like statins did 30 years ago – they are expensive at first, but then prices start to fall, making them more widely affordable to health chiefs.\n<\/p>\n
\n Prof Sattar believes the trend would mean medics would then be able to “widen the net” of people who could be prescribed Mounjaro on the NHS.\n<\/p>\n
\n We previously told how Angela Brown reversed her type 2 diabetes and lost five and half stone after turning to the jags, which have also become a favourite of celebrities such as Elon Musk and singer Meghan Trainor.\n<\/p>\n
\n Angela Brown (Image: Colin Mearns)\n<\/p>\n
\n The 52-year-old gran from Cumbernauld tipped the scales at 24 stone and knew she had to quickly shed the pounds to get her health back on track.\n<\/p>\n
\n Angela said: \u201cI overhauled my diet and lost six stone initially, taking me to 18 stone, but I struggled to shift the rest. I tried everything but nothing seemed to work, then after taking medical advice, I started using Mounjaro and the weight just melted away. It helped my metabolism to kick in and I lost another five and a half stone.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n A spokesperson for NHSGGC added: \u201cWe are currently exploring prescribing and monitoring pathways for\u00a0Mounjaro to patients before inclusion in the GGC formulary.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Health board bosses are looking into costings around giving Mounjaro to obese patients whose health they believe could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217053,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4315],"tags":[105,4326,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-217052","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-medication","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114752139212453205","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}