BY EMILY LINCKE & JESSICA SHORTEN
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surgery and medications, but more people are con- sidering different options that maybe they wouldn’t have considered even before.” The future of weight loss intervention is looking “really bright” with treatments that could continue to be improved in the future, Worley said. “From where you sit as a practitioner, you can’t help but be happy because you’re going to see a rise in awareness of options,” Worley said.
Worley said the number of bariatric surgeries for weight loss may have decreased in the short term when semaglutides first started becoming popular, but not in the long term. “The overall demand for weight loss intervention is way up, because we have options,” Worley said. “I think the best thing about all this is to say more people than ever are aware of their options and that those options still include diet and exercise, …
The FDA has yet to rule on the restriction of compounding semaglutides. If compounded semaglutides are limited, compounding pharmacies will likely abandon the market space, Varisco said. “Most of these facilities, particularly the bigger national compounding pharmacies that are very much so on the FDA radar, are not going to want to find guidance and continue to compound these products,” Varisco said. Restricting compounded semaglutides could further reduce patients’ access to GLP-1 drugs, especially since compounding pharmacies often step in during medication shortages, Varisco said. “That’s a really critical feature of our health care supply, and ensures ... that product may be available from other sources,” Varisco said.
Houston-area bariatric surgery trends, 2016-22 200K
While data regarding bariatric surgeries such as the gastric sleeve and gastric bypass is only available through 2022, doctors say demand has remained high through 2024.
Gastric sleeve Revision surgery Other Sleeve
160,609
150K
125,318
100K
30,894 26,367 62,097
40,316 30,077 19,995
50K
0
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
SOURCE: AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR METABOLIC AND BARIATRIC SURGERY/COMMUNITY IMPACT
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SPRING - KLEIN EDITION
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