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But emerging data suggests that these drugs reduce people’s desire to eat these palatable foods, over and above the side-effects of nausea and other GI symptoms people can experience while taking them, Schwartz says.
“These findings suggest that there’s some kind of mechanism we can tap into to restore healthy eating without drugs by limiting the sense of reward and achieving a sense of satisfaction without overeating,” he says.
Researchers could look at brain activity and behaviour during eating, weight loss and regain, Schwartz says, to see if there are any dietary and exercise interventions that can have similar effects.
“It will take clinical or dietary trials in conjunction with imaging and maintained weight loss, but within a decade, people will have an idea of certain hotspots in the brain and how to target them with behaviour or diet,” Schwartz says.
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