Clinical trial in Ireland challenges beliefs about Ozempic and similar new obesity treatments

A research carried out in St Vincent’s University Hospital (SVUH) Dublin challenges the idea that weight-loss medicines comparable to Ozempic, Wegovy or Monjaro work simply by selling satiety and making you eat much less.

The randomized managed trial with 30 sufferers was led by Professor Donal O’Shea, SVUH and UCD School of Medicine, and examined the household of medicines primarily based on the hormone Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1).

The findings, printed at present within the Journal of the Obesity Society, present that there’s a robust relationship between the rise in metabolic exercise brought on by once-daily therapy with GLP-1 and the quantity of weight misplaced. Furthermore, folks with low metabolic exercise earlier than beginning therapy benefited essentially the most from it.

Professor O’Shea stated, “This research challenges the primary narrative about these newer remedies, which is that they merely make you eat much less, and that any motion on vitality burn is minimal. The energy of the affiliation is stunning given the comparatively small numbers studied and suggests this improve in metabolic exercise is a major contributor to how these medicine work.

“Safe medical therapy for weight problems remains to be in its infancy and we have to perceive totally how the therapy works. Understanding how these brokers improve vitality burn ought to be an necessary a part of future analysis.

“It all the time appeared oversimplistic to me that these new remedies have been simply making folks eat much less. So this research discovering is an thrilling step ahead in our understanding of how these new medicines for weight problems work. The findings additionally present science to help the truth that the therapy of weight problems shouldn’t be merely to eat much less and transfer extra—that is the prevention piece—therapy is extra advanced than that.”

The 30 sufferers had specialised imaging of the fats inside their stomach utilizing a PET-CT scanner, with scans carried out earlier than and after six months of therapy with GLP-1.

The research was co-authored by Professor Silke Ryan, SVUH.