According to recent studies, tirzepatide from Eli Lilly may support ongoing weight-loss initiatives. In the most recent scientific experiment conducted by the company, researchers discovered that participants who lost at least 5% of their body weight before taking the medication continued to lose a lot more weight than those who took a placebo. Over a 16-month period, individuals in the therapy group on average dropped 60 pounds, or 25% of their initial weight.
The main component of Eli Lilly’s type 2 diabetes medication Mounjaro, which was given FDA approval last year, is tirzepatide. It combines GLP-1 and GIP, two hormones that are important for regulating our metabolism and appetite. In the upcoming months, the FDA is anticipated to approve tirzepatide as a treatment for obesity on the basis of extensive, randomised, and controlled clinical trials demonstrating its efficacy in assisting obese individuals in losing weight.
People who use the injectable medicine often drop roughly 20% of their starting weight, according to earlier published trials. Results from the SURMOUNT-3 study, one of these trials, were released on Sunday by researchers in the journal Nature Medicine.
In this study, participants were given a “intensive lifestyle intervention”—a calorie-restrictive diet and exercise regimen—to see how they would react to the medication. It involved more than 500 overweight and obese participants who underwent a 12-week programme and managed to lose at least 5% of their body weight. The following 72 weeks, or around 16 months, saw these patients randomly assigned to either take tirzepatide or a placebo.
Eli Lilly drug tirzepatide meets weight-loss goals in obesity trial
By the end of the research, the therapy group had lost an additional average of 21% of their starting weight, for a total weight loss of 25%. The weight loss in the placebo group, on the other hand, was partially reversed, with an average final loss of 4.8%. In addition, three-quarters of those on tirzepatide maintained at least 10% of their weight loss, as opposed to less than 10% of those taking a placebo. Similar to previous trials, the drug’s side effects mostly involved mild to moderate gastrointestinal problems such nausea, vomiting, and diarrhoea.
According to the study’s principal author Thomas Wadden, an obesity researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, “if you lose weight before you start the drug, you can then add a lot more weight loss after.”
The findings are the latest to demonstrate that tirzepatide and other medications represent a new era in anti-obesity treatment, and they also underscore how challenging it may be to achieve and sustain even modest weight loss through diet and exercise alone. The FDA approved semaglutide from Novo Nordisk to treat obesity in 2021, although trezepatide appears to be more efficient. Semaglutide users in clinical studies typically dropped 15% or more of their body weight. And there are still other medications in development that could either help people lose weight more effectively than either choice alone or have other benefits like being simpler to take as a pill.
But like other pharmaceuticals, these ones include drawbacks that need to be weighed against the benefits that are anticipated. They have been connected to uncommon complications such the temporary paralysis of stomach or gut muscles in addition to typical gastrointestinal problems. Both the longer-term hazards and other possible benefits of these medications, which many individuals may need to take for the rest of their lives to sustain weight loss, are currently being researched. According to recent research, semaglutide can, for instance, prevent cardiac issues and renal illness in obese persons who are predisposed to these conditions.
