A drug originally made to treat patients suffering from type-2 diabetes can also cause significant weight loss in obese individuals, a new study finds.
(Photo : A Sweet Life) Diebetes drug injectable to help obese patients reduce weight
A study published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine, has shown a drug, which was originally intended for diabetes patients, to also help obese patients achieve weight loss and improve metabolic control.
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Liraglutide, an injectable diabetes drug recently launched as ‘Saxenda’ by a Danish pharmaceutical company, was found to help individuals lose significant weight over a yearlong study.
“It is a very effective drug. It seems to be as good as any of the others on the market, so it adds another possibility for doctors to treat patients who are having trouble either losing weight or maintaining weight loss once they get the weight off,” said Dr. Xavier Pi-Sunyer, principal author of the study and a professor of medicine at Columbia University Medical Center in New York as quoted by Live Science.
In their methods, they conducted a 56-week, double blind trials at 191 sites in 27 countries in Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Australia subjecting to treatment 3731 volunteers who had a body-mass index (BMI) of at least 30 or a BMI of at least 27 if diagnosed with high cholesterol or high blood pressure.
They then randomly assigned subjects in a 2:1 ratio: 2487 patients to receive once-daily injections of the diabetes drug ‘liraglutide’ at a dose of 3.0 mg and 1244 other patients to receive placebo for control. Both groups were also given counseling on lifestyle modification which included proper diet and exercise.
After following the proper treatments, the researchers found a total of 63.2 percent of the all the ‘liraglutide’ patients as compared with 27.1 percent in the placebo group who achieved at least 5 percent body weight loss, while 33.1 percent and 10.6 percent, respectively, had more than 10% body weight loss.
However, the researchers also noted adverse effects of the treatments – which went from mild to moderate nausea and diarrhea – affecting 6.2 percent of ‘liraglutide’ patients and 5.0 percent in the placebo group.
With these results, the researchers conclude that the diabetes drug liraglutide, in conjunction to proper diet and exercise, could help obese people significantly reduce their body weight and improve metabolic control to burn more fats.
As quoted in Manila Bulletin, “This is another approach in tackling the obesity epidemic in our country,” said Elias Siraj, director of the Diabetes Program at Temple University Hospital who remarked an accompanying editorial in the journal. “Fortunately, even modest weight loss of five percent to 10 percent makes nearly all medical issues more manageable.”
The research was funded by Novo Nordisk, the global healthcare company which created the drug.
Diabetes Drug To Help Obese Patients Achieve Weight Loss; The Good Side Effect Of "Liraglutide"
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