Remarkable results from a new study on a diabetes drug could be a real shot in the arm for all those struggling with obesity. Two-thirds of Australians are overweight or obese, making us one of the fattest developed nations on Earth, and the messaging on diet and exercise is failing to find its mark. When all else fails, MedicGLP Website the most effective means of losing weight is gastric surgery, MedicGLP Official which is invasive, expensive and confronting for most. But a new study by US researchers has delivered substantial weight loss for its participants and could well change the way we treat obesity. The drug, semaglutide, was discovered in 2012 by researchers at Novo Nordisk, a Danish healthcare company with a focus on chronic disease. It was approved in 2017 by the US Food and Drug Administration as a type 2 diabetes injection treatment. There have been smaller studies into semaglutide as a weight-loss drug, but the latest trial, funded by Novo Nordisk and run by researchers at Northwestern University in Chicago, was bigger in scope and participation.
The trial, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, involved almost 2000 participants across 16 countries. They injected themselves weekly with semaglutide or a placebo for 68 weeks. The double-blind trial involved only people who did not have diabetes and had a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or more, putting them just in the obese range. More than a third of the participants receiving the drug lost more than 20 per cent of their weight, leading to fewer pre-diabetes symptoms in many patients. Some participants on semaglutide suffered nausea and diarrhoea, with 59 ceasing treatment. But the study authors said the side-effects typically were mild to moderate in severity and subsided with time. They were also much less concerning than other weight-loss medications such as amphetamines (addictive), fenfluramine (cardiac toxicity) and, most recently, lorcaserin (cancer risk). Most encouraging was that the weight loss achieved using semaglutide was more than double that of the best-performing anti-obesity drug on the market, phentermine - an amphetamine that has a short-term weight loss average of 7.5 per cent.
The drug is a game-changer, said Dr Robert F. Kushner, who led the study. "This is the start of a new era of effective treatments for obesity," he told The New York Times. The most effective treatment for obesity is bariatric surgery, which helps people lose 25 to 30 per cent of body weight, on average, but it is invasive, and permanently alters the digestive system. Dr Leon Cohen, a bariatric surgeon from Western Australia, has recently begun to prescribe semaglutide to his patients, giving them less than half the dose that participants were given in the US clinical trial. He is reporting similar weight loss results. Dr Cohen told The New Daily that the drug mimics GLP-1, a gut hormone that is released in response to undigested food hitting the distal small bowel, suppressing the appetite. "It’s an interesting and exciting mechanism, because essentially what the body needs is a mechanism that can sense you’ve just had a large meal and there’s still a lot of undigested food that hasn’t been absorbed," he said.
He said that for people tipping into the obese territory, the drug has resulted in "quite respectable weight loss". "It doesn’t matter what treatment you give to someone with a low BMI, they get a good result," he told The New Daily. "They only need to lose 10 kilos and you get a very respectable percentage of your weight loss. But most of his patients have a BMI of more than 40 and surgery remains their only viable option. The long-term effects of semaglutide are unknown, which is a concern because as soon as patients come off the drug their weight begins to climb, so they may have to take the medication for life. Do you struggle with your weight? Would you consider medication to suppress your appetite? If you enjoy our content, don’t keep it to yourself. Share our free eNews with your friends and encourage them to sign up.
Science continues to prove that the old adage "you are what you eat" is profoundly true. This is because you have trillions of microorganisms living in your gut, which are directly responsible for nearly every aspect of your health. These microbes make up what’s called your "gut microbiota." They are especially influential in determining your likelihood of gaining excessive weight, becoming obese, and developing obesity-related diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and premature death. The gut microbiome (the expressed genes of your gut microbiota) plays a major role in your metabolism through energy production, storage, and expenditure. So, it’s no surprise that science has found a strong connection between gut microbiome imbalance and metabolic syndrome. Yikes! If you have the wrong mix of microbes, it could be making it tough for you to get your health on track! Did you know: Scientists can actually look at your gut microbiome composition and tell with 90% accuracy if you are obese or lean. That’s pretty impressive, isn’t it?