Sustained health improvements for people given ‘gamechanger’ drug to treat obesity

The substantial weight loss and improved cardiometabolic health achieved by people given an exciting new drug to treat obesity is maintained if people continue to take the mediation. 

The results come from a large international trial supported by UCLH and UCL of semaglutide – a drug which reduces hunger and calorie intake by acting on the body’s appetite regulating system in the brain.

The drug had already been hailed as a ‘game changer’ based on results in people after 68 weeks. The latest results published in Nature Medicine show weight loss is maintained after 104 weeks (two years).

304 people took part in the STEP 5 trial and between October 2018 and Feburary 2019 were randomly assigned to semaglutide 2.4mg or placebo – with 152 people in each group. 92.8% of participants completed the trial.

The average change in body weight from baseline to week 104 was a 15.2% reduction in the semaglutide group versus a 2.6% reduction in the placebo group. Three quarters of people in the semaglutide group achieved weight loss of 5% of bodyweight or more, compared with only a third in the placebo group.

Gastrointestinal disorders were mostly mild to moderate and were reported more often with semaglutide than with placebo (82.2% vs 53.9%).

One of the study’s principal authors Professor Rachel Batterham, who is Obesity Theme Director at the BRC and who leads the UCLH Centre for Weight Management and the Centre for Obesity Research at UCL, said: “The substantial weight loss and more importantly the improvement in cardiometabolic health were significant and sustained. More than half of all the participants receiving semaglutide lost 15% or more of their total body weight, with over a third losing 20% or more. These results support the benefit of continuous use of semaglutide to sustain weight loss and improved health.”