A major international trial in the UK has led to the discovery of a ‘game changer’ drug to improve the health of people with obesity and could even play a major role in helping to reduce the effects of diseases such as COVID-19.
According to a study published Thursday in the New England Journal for Medicine, the drug, semaglutide, works by disrupting the body’s own desire regulation system in the brain leading to a reduction in hunger and calories. .
More than a third (35 percent) of people who took the new drug for the treatment of obesity lost more than one-fifth of their total body weight, according to a large global study involving carriers University College London (UCL) and nearly 2,000 test participants in 16 countries.
It was also found that three-quarters (75 percent) of people who received 2.4 mg semaglutide lost more than 10 percent of their body weight and more than a third lost more than 20 percent.
The average participant in the trial lost 15.3 kg; these were accompanied by reductions in risk factors for heart disease and diabetes, such as thigh circumference, blood fat, blood sugar and blood pressure and reported improvements in overall quality of life.
The UK’s Auditor General at the trial, Professor John Wilding of the University of Liverpool, said that semaglutide is approved and used clinically at a lower dose for the treatment of diabetes, and therefore it is already used by experienced doctors.
With evidence from the international trial, semaglutide was submitted for regulatory approval as a treatment for obesity to the UK National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE), the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the Food and Safety Administration. US Drugs (FDA).