Diets: Fat

Lord Mitchell Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Mitchell (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord McColl, for securing this short debate. It is certainly of the moment, but I come at this issue from a slightly different viewpoint.

I am not in the habit of discussing my weight in public, but this is the moment of truth; I am going to out myself. For the past two years, I have been injecting myself every week with either Ozempic or Mounjaro. As a result, I have lost over 12% of my body weight and I am keeping it off. Yes, it is expensive and, yes, I will probably have to continue my injections for the rest of my life, but to me it is worth every penny.

I was not fat, but I was in danger of getting on the wrong side of chubby. I knew the risks. I never eat desserts nor sweets nor any junk food, but still the dial went in one direction. The key to weight loss can be summarised in two words—eat less—but that is easier said than done. I suppose the corresponding two words are: exercise more. Fewer carbs, more carbs, protein only, no fruit, skip breakfast, do not eat after 6 pm, fast for 18 hours a day and of course the 5:2 diet—I tried them all. The trouble is, you work hard at it, perhaps you reach your target weight and then it creeps back again. You are always miserable.

As for exercise, those who know me can attest that I can bore for Britain on the subject. Three intense workouts every week, and my phone tells me that I average 7,200 steps per day over a year and often over 10,000 paces—all this is to no avail.

Then along came Ozempic. A weekly self-administered injection is all that it took. It suppresses the appetite and reduces the craving for food—you just lose interest. To me, the difference between dieting and Ozempic is that when you diet all you ever think about is food. When you inject, all you ever think about is the next morning’s rendezvous with a weighing machine.

However, there is more to Ozempic than just weight loss. First, there are all the other health benefits. This week, the Economist, not known for hyperbole, called it the most important drug ever. A drug that started out being used to regulate diabetes can now reduce weight. There is strong evidence that it can control the incidence of kidney and liver disease, cardiovascular issues and sleep apnoea, and reduce drug addiction and opioid inflammation. They say that it can contain ageing and even Alzheimer’s. That is a lot of things. This medication is up there with statins, Prozac, aspirin and even the contraceptive pill in changing our health and behaviour.

Then there are the economic benefits. Some 25% of the population are obese. Many are prone to illness. Their potential productivity is often diminished. At present, the annual cost of obesity to the NHS is around £6.5 billion, and it is expected to increase by 50% by 2050. It is the second-biggest preventable cause of cancer. Add to that the cost of treating all the other illnesses that I have mentioned which GLP-1 might be able to arrest, and you can see that the NHS could make some major savings from the wholesale employment of GLP-1.

If these drugs are as game-changing as I suggest they are, they will have a profound and positive effect on our health and on our economy. They are to be encouraged.