The type 2 diabetes drug Ozempic (semaglutide) may help maintain weight loss following bariatric surgery, according to a new study presented at the 2022 Obesity Week, the annual meeting of the Obesity Society, in San Diego.
Ozempic was originally developed and approved as a glucose-lowering drug for people with type 2 diabetes. But almost right from the start, clinical trials of the drug showed that people with overweight or obesity who took it tended to experience weight loss — so much that Ozempic’s manufacturer, Novo Nordisk, decided to conduct trials of a higher dose of the active compound of the drug as a treatment for obesity. Thus Ozempic was reborn as Wegovy (semaglutide), which was approved as a weight-loss drug in 2021. This wasn’t the first time a diabetes drug gained new approval as a weight-loss drug — Victoza (liraglutide) took a similar path toward becoming Saxenda (liraglutide). Previous research has shown that Saxenda may help reverse the regaining of body weight following bariatric (weight-loss) surgery, and the latest study aimed to find out if Ozempic could do the same.
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When the latest study got under way, Wegovy had not yet been approved. Neither had the recent higher dose of Ozempic for type 2 diabetes been approved — which meant that the highest approved dose of semaglutide at the time was 1 milligram by injection weekly. This dose of 1 milligram of semaglutide was compared with the full 3 milligrams of liraglutide as Saxenda, which was approved at the time the study was designed.
The study participants were 207 adults, with an average age of 52.5, who initially lost weight following bariatric surgery but were starting to gain it back. When it came to the kind of bariatric surgery participants had, 50% underwent sleeve gastrectomy, 29% underwent a common form of gastric bypass, and 21% underwent adjustable gastric banding. To help reverse their weight gain, 115 participants were treated with Ozempic (1 milligram of semaglutide) and 92 were treated with Saxenda (3 milligrams of liraglutide) weekly for 12 months.
Ozempic linked to weight loss after bariatric surgery
After three months of treatment, participants who took Ozempic had lost an average of 5.7% of their body weight at the start of the study, compared with 5.5% for Saxenda. After six months, participants who took Ozempic had lost 8.6% of their body weight, compared with 6.8% for Saxenda. After nine months, average weight loss was 11.8% for Ozempic and 7.7% for Saxenda, and after the entire 12 months it was 13.2% for Ozempic and 9.0% for Saxenda. After 12 months, 69.1% of participants who took Ozempic has lost at least 10% of their body weight, compared with 45.1% of participants who took Saxenda.
After six months, participants who took Ozempic were 2.6 times as likely to lose 10% of their body weight as participants who took Saxenda. After nine months, they were 2.5 times as likely to reach this threshold, and after 12 months they were 4.6 times as likely to reach it.
The researchers concluded that Ozempic was more effective than Saxenda for maintaining weight loss following bariatric surgery among people who had started gaining weight again — even though it was taken at a lower dose than the amount later approved for weight loss as Wegovy. Especially since this higher dose is now approved for weight loss, though, the researchers noted that further studies are needed to figure out the optimal dose for weight-loss maintenance following bariatric surgery.
Want to learn more about bariatric surgery and type 2 diabetes? Read “Is Bariatric Surgery for You?” and “Bariatric Surgery and Diabetes: Questions and Answers.”