iCARDIO Alliance Global Implementation Guidelines for the Management of Obesity: Focus on Prevention and Treatment of Cardiometabolic Disease

There are a number of guidelines on how to manage obesity, but inconsistencies in healthcare access, varying infrastructure, resource constraints, and diverse local practices restrict their global applicability. This underscores the need for universal recommendations that address the unique challenges faced by patients and healthcare providers worldwide. Our Global Guidelines emphasize the incorporation of novel therapies while integrating standards of care with the most up-to-date evidence to enable clinicians to optimize obesity management. Context-specific recommendations tailored to individual patient needs are highlighted, providing a thorough evaluation of the risks, benefits, and overall value of each therapy, aiming to establish a standard of care that improves patient outcomes and reduces the burden of hospitalization in this susceptible population. These Global Guidelines provide evidence-based recommendations that represent a group consensus considering the many other published guidelines that have reviewed many of the issues discussed here, but they also make new recommendations where new evidence has recently emerged, and-most importantly-also provide recommendations on several issues where resource limitations may put constraints on the care provided to patients living with obesity. Such "economic adjustment" recommendations aim to guide situations when "Resources are somewhat limited" or when "Resources are severely limited." Hence, this document presents a comprehensive update to obesity management guidelines, thereby aiming to provide a unified strategy for the pharmacological, non-pharmacological, and invasive management of this significant global health challenge that is applicable to the needs of healthcare around the globe.