Pharmacotherapy in Childhood Obesity

Background: The increasing number of obese children and adolescence is a major problem in health-care systems. Currently, the gold standard for the treatment of these patients with obesity is a multicomponent lifestyle intervention. Unfortunately, this strategy is not leading to a substantial and long-lasting weight loss in the majority of patients. This is the reason why there is an urgent need to establish new treatment strategies for children and adolescents with obesity to reduce the risk for the development of any comorbidities like cardiovascular diseases or diabetes mellitus type 2. Summary: In this review, we outline available pharmacological therapeutic options for children and compare the available study data with the outcome of conservative treatment approaches. Key Messages: We discussed, in detail, how knowledge about underlying molecular mechanisms might support the identification of effective antiobesity drugs in the future and in which way this might modulate current treatment strategies to support children and adolescence with obesity to lose body weight. (C) 2021 S. Karger AG, Basel

Automated summary

This review discusses pharmacological therapeutic options for obese children and adolescents and compares them with conservative treatment approaches. Understanding underlying molecular mechanisms can help identify effective antiobesity drugs and modify current treatment strategies to assist obese children and adolescents in losing weight.