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like a tiny ant compared to the immensity of the universe.
Hello, I'm Claudia Hammond and a very warm welcome to the evidence from the BBC.
This series is produced in collaboration with Welcome Collection and we are here in their beautiful reading room in London with a live audience and hundreds of medical books and works of art relating to human health.
Now today we're going to be looking at the drugs that are taking the weight loss world by storm.
Injections of medication called GLP-1s.
Now most of us probably don't know the names of many blood pressure medications say,
yet brands like Asempic, Wigowi and Munjaro are becoming household names.
Now their use is so widespread that some restaurants are even planning smaller dishes aimed at customers taking the drugs.
And there've been reports that vintage clothing websites are inundated with larger size clothes
because their owners have become slimmer.
And I wonder if we could have a show of hands.
I wonder how many people here are taking them or interested in taking them?
Quite a few people there, quite a few people.
Now so many of these injections are prescribed privately that accurate global figures are hard to come by.
But what we do know is that in the UK alone approximately one and a half million people are now using these medicines.
Now, these drugs are not only transforming obesity treatment.
In trials, they're being used to treat other conditions or to reduce the risk of disease.
So I'll be exploring their potential and asking whether they are something of a medical game changer.
I'll also be finding out what it's like to be on them, what the side effects are,