Can a New Drug Help People Shed 20% of Their Body Fat?
A new combination drug therapy is showing extraordinary promise in the bout against obesity, helping patients lose an average of 20 percent of their body weight in a major clinical trial.
The treatment, known as CagriSema, combines two hormone-based drugs — semaglutide, already approved for weight loss, and cagrilintide, which is still being studied. Cagrilintide is a long-acting form of amylin, which is normally secreted together with insulin from the pancreas, and for the first time is now being studied in a Phase 3 trial. Researchers say the combination has the potential to reshape the future of obesity treatment.
In a large Phase 3 clinical trial, led by the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s W. Timothy Garvey, M.D., and published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, more than 3,400 adults without diabetes but considered obese or overweight and have at least one related health complication took part in a 68-week study. Participants were randomly assigned to receive either the drug combination, one of the two drugs alone, or a placebo, in addition to lifestyle counseling.
Excerpted from UAB News
