(2021-02-18) Glp1 And Obesity

GLP-1 and Obesity. Let’s have a look at a paper that came out recently in the New England Journal of Medicine. It shows strong results in a therapeutic area that a lot of people have spent a lot of effort on: obesity

The paper under discussion is part of a group of compounds that have been investigated for some years now: glucagon-like-peptide 1 (GLP-1) mimics. That’s a very powerful metabolic signaling peptide, and it’s been studied intensely in the diabetes field for its ability to stimulate insulin secretion. But it has effects on the kidneys,

GLP-1 has a very short half-life, under five minutes.

People have made a variety of versions of the actual GLP-1 peptide, modified in ways to extend its half-life.

Those still have to be injected

There are a half-dozen or so of these approved now

As these modified peptides went through clinical trials, a consistent effect seen in the treatment groups was weight loss

That naturally led to ideas about giving such drugs to people who didn’t have diabetes (or not yet) but needed to lose weight

Now, at long last, to the new paper. It’s a study of semaglutide (Ozempic, Rybelsus) in nearly 2000 patients without diabetes, but with BMI of at least 30 (or at least 27 with one other weight-related condition, which are the criteria under which liraglutide was approved).

one injection/week

After 68 weeks, the placebo group had lost about 2.4% body weight, while the treatment group had lost 14.9%, an impressive difference.

These look like very strong results – in fact, I don’t know if I’ve seen anything else that shows this level of weight loss so convincingly

Obesity drugs have blown up too many times in the past for me to proclaim that victory is at hand, but overall the GLP-1 field, for all its complications, looks like a serious contender