The findings suggest that the drug has the potential to reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes and stroke.
In adults with obesity or overweight, weekly treatment with the glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP1) agonist semaglutide leads to a reduction in excess body fat and an increase in lean mass, according to an industry-sponsored study presented virtually in the United States. ENDO 2021, the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting.
“Our findings suggest that semagglutide, through weight loss and improved body composition, has the potential to reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes and stroke in overweight or obese people,” said lead researcher John Wilding, DM, FRCP, University of Liverpool.
Obesity has many health risks. Excess fat in the abdominal area, particularly fat in and around the abdominal organs, also called visceral fat, contributes to the main causes of death and disability, including heart attacks, strokes, hypertension, cancer, fatty liver disease and diabetes.
The study, called STEP 1, included 1,961 adults with a body mass index (BMI) of 27 or higher with at least one weight-related health condition, or BMI of 30 or higher, without diabetes. A person is classified as overweight if their BMI is 25 to 29.9 and the obesity range is a BMI of 30 or more.
Study participants were randomly assigned to inject themselves once a week for 68 weeks with 2.4 milligrams of semagglutide or a placebo. Semagglutide, already approved by the US Food and Drug Administration at the lowest dose of 1 mg weekly as a treatment for type 2 diabetes, is a synthetic version of the naturally occurring hormone, the glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP1). It acts in the appetite centers in the brain and in the intestine and produces a feeling of satiety.
As part of the study, the researchers used dual energy absorptiometry (DEXA), a technique widely used clinically to assess body composition, to monitor the effects of therapy on total body fat and fat around the stomach in 140 of the participants.
They found that treatment with semagglutide improved body composition, reducing excess body fat, including abdominal fat, and increasing the proportion of lean body mass, or the amount of weight someone carries other than body fat. The more body weight a participant loses, the greater the improvement in body composition.
In February 2021, the researchers published the results of the STEP 1 trial in The new English medical journal showing that patients who injected semagglutide lost about 15% of their body weight, on average, compared with 2.4% among patients who received the placebo. More than a third of the participants who received semagglutide lost more than 20% of their weight. Many patients have experienced improvements in risk factors for heart disease, blood sugar levels and quality of life.
Meeting: ENDO 2021