75% of GPs have prescribed anti-obesity drugs

THREE-out-of-every-four GPs have referred a patient for obesity-battling medications, while almost all have patients who had invasive weight-related surgery with or without their doctor’s approval.

A new study by Trinity College, Dublin’s (TCD’s) department of primary care and public health has found further evidence Ireland is in the grip of an obesity epidemic.

According to the survey, published in the latest edition of the Irish Medical Journal, three quarters of the country’s 2,500 GPs have a patient who has received some form of anti-obesity medication.

A further two-out-of-five have referred patients for bariatric surgery — which cuts the size of the stomach in seriously obese people to help them eat less — while half have patients who received the invasive surgery without their GP’s knowledge.

Lead researcher Dr Susan Floyd said the sheer scale of people turning to surgeries and medicines to reduce their weight highlighted an ongoing problem in the nation’s well-being.

She said this could have a significant impact on the continuing growth of heart, renal and diabetic problems.

Worryingly, the detailed survey of GPs experiences of obesity also noted access to the treatments appears to be biased towards private patients and against medical card holders — regardless of patient need.

According to the TCD study, those in greatest need such as people on medical cards do not have the best access to care, despite a series of Government reports over the past decade specifically stating people in lower socio-economic groups suffer most from weight problems.

Among the explanations for this lack of access to medical help put forward by the researchers were time constraints and access to qualified dieticians.

“There is poor access to dietetic services, despite evidence obesity is a risk for a substantial and growing minority of patients,” the research team noted.

The figures come after a number of warnings over Ireland’s growing obesity epidemic. In 2005, the Government’s National Task Force on Obesity said one- out-of-every-five adults in this country are obese according to body mass index calculations, with as many as two-out-of-five overweight.

The same report also warned 300,000 children were either overweight or obese in Ireland six years ago, with a lack of exercise and poor diet expected to add 10,000 children to the figure every year.

The authors of the latest TCD research have asked the Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP) to consider providing dietary advice training for GPs and practice nurses if the growing problems of obesity, diabetes and renal disease are to be adequately tackled.