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- [00:02]
A
Could weight loss drugs make it harder to keep the pounds off in the long run? Live from the uk, this is the Marketplace Morning Report from the BBC World Service, I'm Guy Kilty. Good morning. Revolutionary weight loss jobs like Azempic, Mounjaro and Wegovy have flooded the market in the past couple of years, helping millions of people shed excess pounds and creating a boom in the pharma industry. But a new UK study published in the British Medical Journal says that while these injections can be effective initially, we once users stop taking them, they can regain their lost weight four times faster than those who stop conventional dieting and exercising. The BBC's Nick Marsh has been looking into this. Hi, Nick.
- [00:40]
B
Hello, Guy.
- [00:41]
A
So does the report say why people who've been taking the weight loss drugs do put on the weight much more quickly?
- [00:49]
B
What it found was that even though these weight loss jabs are incredibly effective at helping people lose weight, basically suppresses your hunger by providing this hormone GLP1, even though they are incredibly effective at doing this, if you suddenly come off them. It found that people were gaining on average 0.8 kilos a month compared to 0.1 kilos a month if you were dieting and exercising and stopped doing that. Now, even though the study didn't explicitly say why, lots of experts say that artificially producing this hunger suppressing hormone over long periods of time in your body means that your body could produce less of its own Natur Natural GLP1, the hunger suppressing hormone. And so when you come off the drugs, you're going to be even hungrier than you were before you even went on them.
- [01:42]
A
The companies that make these drugs, what have they said in response to this survey?
- [01:45]
B
So there's a couple of main pharmaceutical companies that we're talking about. Eli Lilly, an American company that makes Mounjaro, Novo Nordisk, that is a Danish company that makes Swigovy. They basically both say the same thing. They say that these drugs should be taken under medical supervision. You should obviously follow the advice of your health practitioners and they should crucially be accompanied by healthy eating, physical activity, lots of medical follow ups and that obesity is a chronic thing. They don't dispute the findings, but they put it into a broader context of a healthy lifestyle.
- [02:20]
A
As you mentioned, these companies have been very successful over the last couple of years producing these drugs. What are the implications, if any, for the industry that makes these drugs?
- [02:29]
B
Well, there's no regulatory implications. They're selling them as they were before, but it does highlight the risks of coming off them the cynical onlookers could look at this as something which could definitely benefit pharmaceutical companies. If it's something that you have to take for the rest of your life, then that means that's a drug that you're going to be spending money on for a substantial period of time.
- [02:52]
A
Nick, thanks very much for joining us on Marketplace.
- [02:54]
B
Thanks, Guy.
- [02:55]
A
Let's do the numbers. Samsung's quarterly profits more than tripled after Global demand for AI servers lifted memory chip prices. South Korea's largest company reported an operating profit of almost $14 billion in the fourth quarter. Meanwhile, stock markets in Asia trended down on Thursday, with the Nikkei in Tokyo and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong both down. Now the social media platform X has missed a deadline from the Indian government to explain how it's responding to the generation of indecent imagery by its AI chatbot, Grok. India is one of several countries, including the UK and others in the European Union, that are raising concerns. Over the weekend, X's owner, Elon Musk, said that anyone generating illegal content through AI would suffer the same consequences as if they uploaded it themselves. 2025 was a choppy year for the world's bond markets, with a lot of price volatility. Events in Venezuela this week saw U.S. treasury bond yields rise, and many analysts are predicting 2026 bond markets will be as turbulent as they were last year. Marketplace's Gideon Long caught up with April larousse of Insight Investments, and he started by asking her about the recent state of the market.
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C
Prices have been moving up and down quite a lot, and there's just been a lot of bonds to buy. Governments have been issuing a lot of bonds because they're running very large deficits. And this is really in pretty much every country you look at, companies have been issuing lots of bonds. So you have an unpredictable economic environment and you have a lot of bonds being sold that causes a lot of price movements.
- [04:28]
A
Interest rates have been relatively high in 2025. We don't know what's going to happen in 2026, but they are likely to ease slightly. What will that mean for bonds and for bonds?
- [04:39]
C
Well, it sounds like good news, doesn't it? We do want lower interest rates, and the bond market normally likes that. I think the issue is they're kind of already expecting it. If the market's already pricing that in, then there isn't really a whole lot of scope for excitement.
- [04:55]
A
And the volatility that we've seen in 2025, what does that mean for governments, for their budgets and for their spending plans.
- [05:02]
C
I'm not sure that the volatility will necessarily unnerve governments, but they will be thinking about what sort of bonds do I need to sell? Should I be selling longer ones or shorter ones? When should I be issuing? We don't think that on the whole governments are going to say we should be spending less. It does seem as though there is a desire to continue to basically boost economic growth through higher government spending.
- [05:27]
A
And is volatility necessarily bad for bond traders, April? I mean, does it create opportunities for them, perhaps?
- [05:34]
C
Absolutely. If you are an active trader or an active investor and you're changing your investment positions, yeah, volatility can be a wonderful opportunity. I suppose the issue really is if you're not taking active positions and if you're looking for what most people look to the bond market for, which is stable, predictable income, it is for those types of investors that volatility is kind of unsettling and they might be quite nervous about continuing to have investments in the bond market.
- [06:03]
A
April larousse, thanks for joining us here on Marketplace.
- [06:07]
C
Thank you.
- [06:08]
A
Lastly, the first UK military personnel hired specifically for their gaming and coding skills have now started work. The new recruits have been through a graduate program and will fight daily cyber attacks. The government says young people with this expertise are key to the future of the UK's defence in the UK. I'm Guy Kilty with the Marketplace Morning Report from the BBC World Service.
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D
Hey everyone. You already listened to Marketplace podcasts, so you know that it's important to understand how economic forces shape our lives. And that feels especially important now as we're all trying to make sense of the latest headlines. I'm Marina Reyes, host of Marketplaces this Is Uncomfortable, a show that explores how money bumps up against our relationships, our choices, and the parts of life we don't always say aloud. And starting January 15th, we are back every single week. New stories, new questions, and the kind of conversations that make you feel less alone in this quickly changing economy. We're tackling questions like should I turn my hobby into a money making side hustle? How do I deal with layoff anxiety? Or what do we owe our parents financially? Don't miss an episode. Subscribe to this Is Uncomfortable Comfortable from Marketplace. Wherever you get your podcasts.