Investing in weight loss drugs has led to fat profits

ILLUSTRATION: NINA KRAUSE

Shareholders get a bad press for putting our life savings at risk in the hope of some reward, such as capital growth or dividend income. Yah, boo, hiss!

However, we also help to pay for medical research that can find cures for illnesses that kill millions of people. For example, obesity is linked to a wide range of potentially fatal conditions — including cancer, heart attacks and strokes — that mean many folk are effectively digging their own graves, one spoonful at a time.

Mocking fatties like me, or telling us to eat less and exercise more, doesn’t usually make us any fitter. So this small shareholder was delighted to report rumours of new and effective weight-loss drugs in this space more than three years