The race to find the drug that allows more weight loss has skyrocketed. It seems to lead for now semaglutide, which is marketed under the name of Ozempic, a drug that is used in the treatment of diabetes and that has also shown its effectiveness in combating obesity in adolescents. Now, the experimental drug retatrutide, developed by the Eli Lilly company, has shown that it is effective both in helping to lose weight and in controlling type 2 diabetes. New data from the phase 2 trial of retatrutide – in which 338 adults have participated – have been presented at the 83rd American Diabetes Association Scientific Sessions and have been published in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).
“Participants treated with the highest dose of retatrutide achieved an average weight reduction of 24.2%; this translates to an average absolute weight loss of about 60 pounds over the 11 months of the study. Since the participants had not yet reached a weight plateau at the time the study ended, it appears that full weight reduction efficacy has not yet been achieved. Longer phase 3 trials will allow a comprehensive evaluation of the efficacy and tolerability of this potential pharmacotherapeutic for the treatment of obesity,” explained Dr. Ania Jastreboff, Associate Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics, Endocrinology and Metabolism, in the Yale School of Medicine; Director, Yale Obesity Research Center (Y-Weight); and co-director of the Yale Weight Control Center, in statements collected by the pharmaceutical company Lilly.
In a similar study of retatrutide for patients with type 2 diabetes that has been published in The Lancet, participants lost about 17% of their body weight in nine months, which is an important advance, because for people with type 2 diabetes 2 It is often more difficult to lose the same amount of weight as other people who are overweight or obese but without diabetes. In addition, about a third of type 2 diabetes patients who took the drug also returned to normal blood sugar levels while taking it.
How retatrutida works to help lose weight
Retatrutide is given as a bi-weekly injection, while semaglutide is also an injectable drug that is given once a week and, originally only used to treat diabetes, is now in high demand for weight loss. During the trial, treatment with retatrutide has been associated with improvements in cardiometabolic measures, including systolic and diastolic blood pressure, triglycerides, LDL cholesterol, total cholesterol, HbA1c, and fasting glucose and insulin at weeks 24 and 48.
“Participants treated with the highest dose of retatrutide achieved an average weight reduction of 24.2%; that is, an average of around 26 kilos during the 11 months of the study”
This medication works by mimicking the hormone GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1), which helps regulate blood sugar and can increase feelings of fullness after eating, and also acts on two other hormones. One, called glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP), which also helps control blood sugar, and the other, called glucagon, which can help suppress appetite and increase energy expenditure, so you eat less number of calories and burn more, test results suggest.
A spokesman for Eli Lilly has stated that the “combined effects are expected to produce significantly greater weight loss” than other slimming drugs, based on current research. Regarding its level of safety, it can be compared to that of similar drugs and in the study the adverse effects were mild or moderate in intensity and partially decreased by reducing the initial dose of the drug.
“We believe that the combination of glucagon receptor agonism with GIP and GLP-1 receptor agonism may be one of the reasons why retatrutide showed this level of weight loss,” said Dan Skovronsky, MD, Director Lilly scientist and physician and president of Lilly Research Laboratories. “These Phase 2 data have given us confidence to further explore the potential of retatrutide in Phase 3 trials that will look beyond weight reduction and focus on the comprehensive treatment of obesity and its complications.” .
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