New weekly obesity injection could help people rapidly shed body weight
dailyrecord.co.ukA weekly injection to fight against obesity may help people to shed weight fast, according to a new study.Tirzepatide, from Eli Lilly and Company and sold under the brand name Mounjaro, is currently approved by UK regulators for type 2 diabetes but may also soon be approved for obesity.The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) is currently seeing whether the drug would be a good use of NHS money before recommending or rejecting it for use across the health board.In a new study, presented at the European Congress on Obesity in Dublin but not yet peer-reviewed, researchers carried out an analysis of 2,539 adults who were overweight or obese and had at least one weight-related complication, excluding diabetes.They were split into groups to either receive a placebo drug, or 5mg, 10mg or 15mg doses of tirzepatide.The proportion of people who lost weight compared with the start of the study, and those who lost more than 5% of their body weight in total, were assessed across BMI categories 27 to 30, 30 to 35, 35 to 40 and 40 and over.Body composition was also studied in a smaller group who underwent specialised scans to look at their fat mass and their lean mass.At the beginning of the study, people typically weighed more than 16st (104.8kg) and had a BMI of 38.
The average body weight loss after 72 weeks of weekly injections was 16% for the 5mg dose group, 21% for the 10mg and 23% for the 15mg group.
This compared with a 2% loss on placebo.The proportion of people who lost 5% or more of their body weight was 89% on the 5mg dose, 96% on the 10mg and 96% with 15mg.
This compared with 28% on the placebo.And more than half of people (56%) in the 10mg group and 63% in the 15mg group lost a fifth or more of their
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