Figure 1.

Excess intake of calories causes overweight and obesity. There are three main pharmacological strategies to achieve a caloric deficit. Two of them aim to prevent the storage of excess calories, first by acting on the central nervous system to cause an anorexic effect and regulate appetite, and second by inducing early excretion and thus preventing ingested food from becoming a useful source of calories. The third strategy, and the topic of this review, is the use of drugs that increase energy expenditure by causing the body to use calories already stored in the form of fat.