---
type: source
title: "WHO Issues Global Guideline on the Use of GLP-1 Medicines in Treating Obesity — Notable Absence of Eating Disorder Risk Guidance"
author: "World Health Organization"
url: https://www.who.int/news/item/01-12-2025-who-issues-global-guideline-on-the-use-of-glp-1-medicines-in-treating-obesity
date: 2025-12-01
domain: health
secondary_domains: []
format: official-guidance
status: unprocessed
priority: medium
tags: [glp1, who, guideline, obesity, global, eating-disorders, regulatory-gap]
intake_tier: research-task
---

## Content

WHO global guideline issued December 1, 2025, recommending GLP-1 therapies (semaglutide and two other agents) for long-term treatment of obesity in adults.

Exclusion: Pregnant women (only explicit population exclusion noted in news release).

Eating disorder risk: NOT mentioned in the guideline news release. No specific contraindications for eating disorder history, no screening requirements, no psychiatric adverse event profile discussed.

Conditional recommendation rationale: "limited data on their long-term efficacy and safety" — but eating disorders not specifically named among the safety concerns requiring more data.

Additional safety note: Concern about "falsified and substandard medical products" posing threats to patient safety — requires "regulated distribution and prescription by qualified health care providers."

## Agent Notes
**Why this matters:** This is the MOST IMPORTANT regulatory gap finding in today's session. The WHO — the global health authority — issued a broad recommendation for GLP-1 in obesity treatment in December 2025, at least 18 months AFTER the VigiBase eating disorder signal was published and without any eating disorder screening requirement or contraindication. This is not a gap in evidence — the signal existed. It's a gap in regulatory response.

**What surprised me:** The contrast between (a) WHO issuing a global obesity guideline in December 2025 that makes no mention of ED risk, and (b) the eating disorder pharmacovigilance signal being documented in the literature throughout 2024-2025. The FDA/EMA January 2026 review focused on suicidality (and found no causal link) but apparently similarly did not issue eating disorder-specific guidance. This creates a world where 43M+ Americans are on GLP-1s, the global health authority has just recommended broad adoption, and no formal screening requirement for eating disorder history exists.

**What I expected but didn't find:** Any WHO mention of eating disorder history as a contraindication or risk factor. Compared to the suicidality signal (which received EMA/FDA formal review), the eating disorder signal has received essentially no regulatory response despite higher magnitude (aROR 4.17-6.80 vs 1.45 for suicidality).

**KB connections:**
- [[healthcare AI regulation needs blank-sheet redesign because the FDA drug-and-device model built for static products cannot govern continuously learning software]] — parallel regulatory response failure
- [[SDOH interventions show strong ROI but adoption stalls because Z-code documentation remains below 3 percent]] — same pattern: known intervention (ED screening) not operationalized
- [[CMS is creating AI-specific reimbursement codes]] — regulatory innovation for AI; regulatory silence for GLP-1 ED risk

**Extraction hints:** Key finding: "The WHO December 2025 global GLP-1 obesity guideline contains no eating disorder screening requirement or contraindication despite the pharmacovigilance eating disorder signal (aROR 4.17-6.80) predating the guideline by at least 18 months." This is a regulatory response gap claim — challengeable, specific, and documentable.

**Context:** News release, not the full guideline document. The full guideline may contain more detail — but the absence from the news release summary suggests it's not a prominent recommendation.

## Curator Notes (structured handoff for extractor)
PRIMARY CONNECTION: [[healthcare AI regulation needs blank-sheet redesign because the FDA drug-and-device model built for static products cannot govern continuously learning software]]
WHY ARCHIVED: Documents the asymmetry between signal magnitude (highest psychiatric signal) and regulatory response (none) — this is the structural governance gap that makes the eating disorder risk a Vida-domain systemic claim, not just a clinical risk note
EXTRACTION HINT: Frame the claim as: "The regulatory response to GLP-1 eating disorder risk (none) is disproportionate to the pharmacovigilance signal magnitude (highest psychiatric signal, class effect), indicating institutional failure to translate pharmacovigilance findings into prescribing guidance."
