Injected Drug Liraglutide May Be Solution to Obesity

An investigational drug initially created for the treatment of obesity has returned great results in a study meant to determine if it also works to help the clinically obese lose weight. Not only did liraglutide, marketed under the brand name Victoza, lead to considerable weight loss, but it also fared better than orlistat, which is now available on the market as Alli, the so-called magic weight-loss drug, the Los Angeles Times says.

The drug was approved for diabetes treatment in Europe last year, and is currently under review with the Food and Drug Administration in the US. It acts as an appetite suppressant, curbing the appetite, and comes with the only disadvantage that it has to be injected in the body at fixed intervals. It also comes with mild side-effects, such as nausea and vomiting, but these go away in a short while, as the subjects in the latest study have learned.

However, what’s most important, liraglutide leads to weight loss, subjects on the highest doses dropping an average of seven kg in 20 weeks. Of course, the use of the drug was associated with a low-calorie, healthy diet and regular workout sessions, but the results were astounding nonetheless, especially when compared with those of orlistat. Orlistat, as we also reported on previous occasions, boasts of being one of the most successful weight-loss drugs currently on the market, although it does come with a series of very nasty side-effects.

“After 20 weeks, those [participants in the study] on liraglutide lost more weight than those on the placebo. Participants on the highest dose of liraglutide lost 15 pounds compared with 6 pounds on the placebo and 9 pounds on orlistat. Three-quarters of the subjects on the two highest doses of liraglutide lost 5% or more of their body weight. The medication also reduced blood pressure and symptoms of pre-diabetes.” the aforementioned publication says of the findings of the study. All 564 participants in the study were obese.

Despite the great initial results, further studies are in order to determine the exact effects of the drug in the long run. “As a weight loss drug, liraglutide faces many hurdles. [But] drugs that can control diabetes, without causing weight gain, have huge potential. Furthermore, this group of patients is used to injections of insulin and Byetta. For a primary obesity drug to require injections would require blockbuster data.” Mitchell Roslin, chief of obesity surgery at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, says, pointing that the FDA is currently focusing on whether the new drug can cause thyroid tumors.