A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine has shown that a once-daily dose of liraglutide 3.0 mg, in conjunction with diet and exercise, is an effective treatment to aid weight loss in obese people. The glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist, which is licensed by the European Medicines Agency at the 1.2 mg and 1.8 mg doses for management of blood glucose levels in people with type 2 diabetes, resulted in greater weight loss than diet and exercise alone.
The study was a 1-year, double-blind, randomised controlled trial conducted in 3731 people without type 2 diabetes and either with a BMI of ≥30 kg/m2 or with a BMI of ≥27 kg/m2 and comorbid dyslipidaemia or hypertension. The participants were randomised in a 2:1 ratio to once-daily, subcutaneous injections of liraglutide or placebo, both in conjunction with diet and exercise.
After 1 year, the liraglutide group had lost a mean of 8.4 kg of body weight, compared with 2.8 kg in the placebo group (mean difference, –5.6 kg; 95% confidence interval, −6.0 to −5.1; P<0.001). In addition, more participants in the liraglutide group lost ≥5% (63.2% vs 27.1%) and ≥10% of their body weight (33.1% vs 10.6%; P<0.001 for both comparisons). Gastrointestinal symptoms, such as nausea and diarrhoea, were the most common side effects, and were mostly mild in nature. Liraglutide recipients were more likely to withdraw from the study owing to adverse events (9.9% vs 3.8%). Interestingly, the rate of new diagnoses of diabetes in the liraglutide group was less than one eighth of that in the placebo group, and a 2-year study extension is being conducted to explore this further.
In an accompanying editorial, Drs Elias Siraj and Kevin Williams (Temple University School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, USA) said: “Undoing the detrimental influences of our new environment requires practical strategies for eating less and moving more. Fortunately, even modest loss of body weight of 5 to 10% makes nearly all medical issues more manageable. On the basis of the current study, modest weight loss may now be easier to achieve, yet we await the results from studies with longer follow-up.”
The study can be read in full here.
