by steven reinberg
health reporter
Weight Loss Diabetes Diet - Diabetes Drug May Spur Weight Loss in Obese Nondiabetics
Thursday, (Health News) - a higher dose of diabetes liraglutide drug (Victoza) can help obese people without the disease lose weight, a new study suggests.
In this test of its effectiveness as a help of diet, people who take liraglutide for more than a year lost an average of 8% of their body weight, compared with 2.6% shed by those They make a placebo (drug added), the researchers discovered.
Victoza / Liraglutide is typically administered in 1,2 milligrams and 1.8 doses milligrams as diabetes treatment. In the new study, designed to see if the medicine could help reduce obesity, the dose of the drug was higher than 3 milligrams.
"liraglutide, an already approved injection treatment for diabetes treatment, can help reduce body weight in people with obesity when used in greater dose than is usually used in diabetes," said the main researcher Dr. John Wilding, head of the Department of Obesity and Endocrinology of the University of Liverpool in England.
"These results suggest that liraglutide is effective and overall well tolerated for the treatment of obesity," he said.
Although this study did not compare victoza with other weight loss drugs, the jungle said an earlier study showed that Victoza could produce about twice as much weight loss than another drug, orlistat (xenical).
xenical works reducing the amount of fat that intestines can absorb. People taking xenical lose an average of five to seven pounds, studies showed.
Victoza works by lowering blood sugar.
The study results were scheduled for presentation Thursday the obesity congress in Sofia, Bulgaria. Data and conclusions presented at meetings are generally considered to be preliminary until they are published in a pair-revised medical journal.
dr. David Katz, director of Yale University prevention research center in New Haven, Conn., It was not surprised by the discoveries. "A number of drugs used to treat type 2 diabetes tend to produce weight loss as one of its effects," Katz said, who was not involved in the study.
This is predictable because insulin resistance that precedes and often accompanies type 2 diabetes results in frequent hunger and weight gain. Reducing blood sugar results in weight loss, he said.
If Victoza improves long-term weight management or leads to better health outcomes over the years, when used for weight loss is unknown, he said.
"But for now, Victoza takes his place alongside other drugs studied, for diabetes, but [considered] potentially useful for weight loss too," Katz said.
"Such drugs will never replace diet and physical activity, but can prove a reasonable addition to the lifestyle intervention some patients," added Katz.
For study, wild and colleagues randomly selected more than 3,700 obese and overweight adults to take daily injections from Victoza or placebo. The mean age of the participants was 45 years.
People in both groups also followed a diet containing 500 less calories than a normal diet. And they had to increase physical activity walking quickly for 30 minutes at least five times a week.
Many participants (61 percent) had blood sugar levels that made them prediabetic, but none had type 2 type 2 diabetes, the researchers observed.
The researchers found that almost two-thirds of those who lead victoza lost 5% or more of their body weight, and a third lost 10% or more. Among those who take placebo, 27% lost 5 percent of their body weight or more, and one in 10 lost 10% or more.People who take victoza also saw a drop in their blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol, the study found.
Based on these phase 3 test findings, the new drug maker Nordisk is asking for food and US drug administration to approve Victoza for weight loss. Phase 3 is the final step of the drug approval process.
The most common side effects were nausea and diarrhea. Most of them were light and short-lived, the researchers said.
Problems of gallbladder and pancreas (pancreatitis) were more common among those who take victoza, but numbers were small. About 10% of the participants in both groups left the study because of the side effects.
Wilding served as a consultant of the new Nordisk, which financed the study.
