Endocrinologist Dr Michael Hancock knows the advent of GLP-1 medications for weight loss has provided health benefits for many patients, however he also acknowledges GPs may face challenges when dealing with these drugs.
While much focus has been on those who are prescribed the medications losing weight, he said the advantages were far more widespread.
Dr Hancock said while the medicines were likely to impact many aspects of cardiometabolic syndrome in a positive way, the newness of the drugs meant there was a lot of research underway on each variation of the medications.
“They can play a role in all aspects of the cardiometabolic syndrome, like weight, diabetes, blood pressure, cholesterol, fatty liver disease and sleep apnoea,” he told Medical Forum.
“I think GPs are very comfortable in how to use the medications, but I think the difficulty is keeping up to date with the constant research and novel findings that are coming out.”
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Dr Hancock said another factor that GPs were often trying to balance was the cost and the longevity of the medications. Some patient are likely to need them on a longer term basis and GPs must weight up that cost factor.
“We are seeing that these medications work, but as soon as they’re stopped patients are likely to rebound. They’re likely to either rebound the weight loss that they’ve had or even rebound the metabolic benefits that they’ve had,” he said.
“Given the fact we’ve got patients having to privately pay for a lot of the medications, there’s that difficulty of uncertainty.
“We’re at a time in the world where everything’s expensive, and getting a lot more expensive. There’s a lot of benefits that come from these medications, but can patients truly keep paying for it?”
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Dr Hancock said GPs needed to spend time having honest conversations with patients about these factors. He expects eventually there will be indicators that will allow certain patients to access GLP-1s under the PBS.
“It’ll likely be quite select groups, so it might be fairly significant degrees of elevated BMI, but maybe with other metabolic things together like cardiovascular risk, but that’s that’s very much up in the air,” he said.
Dr Hancock will be speaking at Medical Forum Live, a clinical education event taking place on May 9 where attendees can earn up to 22 hours of CPD.
He will be talking about the complexity around GLP-1s, the need for multidisciplinary care in many cases and about how GPs can increase their confidence to undertake complete cardiometabolic assessments in patients.
His talk will be one of the presentations taking place. The day will cover clinical education on common, acute and chronic presentations to general practice. Connect with colleagues from across WA and complete almost 50% of your yearly CPD requirements.
REGISTER TO ATTEND – SPACES ARE LIMITED
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