Saxenda Can Help In Losing Weight: Study

Researchers through a recent study revealed that Saxenda, a treatment used for treating diabetes, could help people reduce weight. People who inject the drug every day for a year lost on an average 18.5 pounds as compared to control group taking a placebo that reduced only six pounds.

Liraglutide, popularly known as Saxenda, was studied with 3,700 overweight and obese people, all the participants were not earlier diagnosed with diabetes. But it was told that nearly half of the study’s subjects exhibited prediabetes.

Study researchers told that subjects during the study were divided into two groups. First was an experimental group of 2,500 participants who received injections of the drug, and the second group was a control population of 1,200 people who were given placebo.

All the study’s participants were given lifestyle counseling with an aim to teach them methods to promote weight loss.

After almost 56 weeks, 63% of the subjects that were given the drug lost 5% or more of their body weight whereas almost 33% lost at least 10% of their initial body mass as compared to 27% and 10% of participants receiving placebo.

Xavier Pi-Sunyer from the Columbia University Medical Center said, “It is very effective drug, so it adds another possibility for doctors to treat patients who are having trouble either losing weight or maintaining weight loss once they get the weight off”.

Liraglutide acts in a similar fashion to the natural hormone glucagon-like peptide-1, which reduces hunger and rate at which food is absorbed into the small intestines from the stomach.