‘Exciting but not a silver bullet’

IRELAND’S leading campaigner on the obesity epidemic gave a cautious welcome to reports of a vaccine against obesity this weekend.

Professor Dónal O’Shea described the research emerging from the University of Massachusetts as ‘exciting’ but added that belief in a silver bullet in tackling the problem of obesity was naive.

‘It’s exciting, but you wouldn’t want to be overly reactive to a study of 80 people in terms of a global epidemic that’s mainly driven by the environment,’ said Prof. O’Shea, who is national clinical lead for obesity with the HSE.

‘It’s a small study and it’s still association, not causal. What’s important is that there is work going on in treating obesity and preventing obesity.

‘The University of Massachusetts is highly reputable, so you would pay attention to that, but you wouldn’t overreact to it.

‘We also know that unless people are making an effort around physical activity and nutrition, nothing works.

‘None of the drugs that are available, not even the surgery, if you don’t make an effort with diet and lifestyle, nothing will work.

‘So, if people think a vaccine might end obesity, that’s naivety in the extreme.’

He urges everyone to keep healthy by fitting in at least 10,000 steps per day into their lifestyle and engage in weight resistance exercises to build muscle to burn fat.