This Type of Diabetes Drug Can Help You Lose Weight
A drug approved to treat type 2 diabetes is highly effective in reducing obesity, according to a new study. The drug, called tirzepatide, acts on two natural hormones that help control blood sugar and are involved in sending satiety signals from the gut to the brain.
Researchers noticed that people who took drugs for their diabetes lost weight. The trial focused on obese people without diabetes and found more drastic weight loss.
The tirzepatide trial, called SURMONT-1, involved more than 2,500 volunteers who met the medical definition of obesity, had a body mass index of 30 or more, or had a slightly lower BMI but at least one weight-related health problem.
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The average BMI of participants was 38.70 percent white and almost as many as women. Nearly everyone who takes the drug sees an increase in blood sugar, blood pressure, and lipid levels. Trials began in December 2019 and were completed despite the Covid-19 pandemic.
Dr. Ania Jastreboff, an obesity medicine specialist at Yale Medicine who helped lead the trial, said her patients responded to tirzepatide in the same way as other drugs, including some with no benefit at all. Nine out of 10 lost weight, and at the highest dose of 15 mg they lost an average of 52 pounds each.
"Drugs like tirzepatide allow us to actually treat patients the way we need to treat them. They effectively reset the body's biologics to restore their weight," says Jastreboff.
Dr. Robert Gabbay, chief scientific and medical officer for the American Diabetes Association, said: "Nothing provides weight loss like that except surgery," he said as quoted by USA Today, Tuesday (7/6/2022).
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Another obesity treatment approved last year called semaglutide, from Novo Nordisk, provides an average weight loss of about 15 percent. The previous generation of diet pills only lost about 5 percent of body weight.
"For most of the trial participants, the side effects of tirzepatide were not serious," said Jeff Emmick, vice president of product development for Lilly's diabetes division, which makes the drug.
About 15 percent of participants who received the drug dropped out of the trial after 72 weeks because of gastrointestinal side effects. Then, 26 percent of test participants who received a placebo, dropped out. Emmick suspects they may be frustrated by the lack of weight loss.
On May 13, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved tirzepatide, under the trade name Mounjaro, for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. Tirzepatide is not available as a weight-loss drug, but Lilly hopes to have an updated schedule from the FDA this year.
Before approving a weight-loss drug, regulatory agencies may want Lilly to complete other research that is currently underway to examine tirzepatide in people with obesity. A 15 percent to more than 20 percent weight loss has the potential to change the way doctors treat diabetes, Gabbay says, from focusing on reducing blood sugar to achieving complete remission.
An earlier study of tirzepatide in diabetes showed that half of the participants who were early in the course of their diabetes went into remission while taking the drug.
"It's changing the way we think about therapy for people with type 2 diabetes," says Gabbay.
What is unknown, Gabbay said, is whether remission achieved in this way will reduce the typical complications of diabetes, which can include cardiovascular disease, nerve and kidney damage, and limb amputations.
It's also unclear whether tirzepatide will provide the cardiovascular benefits that semaglutide provides, said David Rind, a primary care physician and chief medical officer for the Boston-based Institute for Clinical and Economic Review.
It would be helpful, says Rind, to run a live trial between the two drugs to see if there is a difference in their health benefits.
"The question is, is tirzepatide a step better than all those (other weight loss) drugs? There must be reasons to think it's possible, but I don't think it's been proven," said Rind.
