health medications
Even with weight loss injection 2.0, the excess weight comes back quickly
Published on December 14, 2023 | Reading time: 3 minutes
Weight loss injections – here “Ozempic” – are in demand. Now a new preparation is coming onto the market
What: REUTERS
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“Mounjaro”, a new generation of weight loss syringes, is coming onto the market. The effect is even better than previous medications. But a study shows a problem for patients if treatment is not received.
The now famous weight loss injections “Ozempic” and “Wegovy” are facing competition. On November 9th, the European Medicines Commission (EMA) recommended the approval of the next generation of drugs. The drug “Mounjaro” comes from the US pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and, according to all studies, works even better than its predecessors: both for controlling blood sugar and for losing weight.
But now a current study shows: Success only lasts as long as the injections are administered.
The new weight loss products developed to treat diabetes trump each other. While people who are very overweight lose around 15 percent of their original weight with the first generation of weight loss injections, people who use “Mounjaro” lose 20 percent of their kilos. So if you weigh 150 kilograms, you will reduce your weight by 30 kilograms within months.
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To date, only a few overweight people have been able to achieve such weight loss with the help of stomach reductions. While a gastric sleeve often allows you to become permanently slimmer, this does not seem to apply to weight loss injections. As soon as you stop taking them, the weight you lost comes back.
A study in the issue of the specialist magazine “Jama” now confirms these sobering results for the weight loss injection 2.0. The team led by the doctor Louis Aronne from the University of Weill Cornell Medicine in New York administered “Mounjaro” with the active ingredient tirzepatide to almost 700 severely overweight people for nine months. They then separated the group: one half injected the active ingredient of the Eli Lilly preparation, the other half received a placebo.
While the active ingredient group maintained its new lightness, almost all participants in the placebo group had almost completely regained their starting weight after one year. It can even be assumed that it would continue to rise above the initial level, believes Isabelle Mack, head of the nutrition and weight regulation department at the Tübingen University Hospital. The data indicated that the increasing process was far from complete.
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Struggle with weight
Doctors had great hope for the new weight loss injections. Unlike “Wegovy” and “Ozempic”, whose active ingredient semaglutide suppresses a person’s appetite via the GLP-1 receptor in the brain, “Mounjaro” works via a second pathway. It also binds to so-called GIP receptors, which enhance the effect.
But: “The results are anything but surprising,” says Stephan Martin, diabetologist and director of the West German Diabetes and Health Center in Düsseldorf. With semaglutide there would be almost identical results. And he believes that the increase effect would be even greater in everyday life. “The participants were additionally trained to change their lifestyle.”
In everyday situations, the care is significantly less, so weight gain probably occurs much more quickly. But can you expect a lasting effect after just 36 weeks? The drugs act like psychotherapeutics on brain metabolism. Neurologists assume that this only changes after about two years on average.
Change your lifestyle
Stephan Martin considers this to be unlikely in the case of weight loss injections. “I am more concerned that prolonged use will cause the effect of the medication to wear off,” he says.
He has this experience in practice with people with type 2 diabetes. “Semaglutide works very well in the beginning, but if your lifestyle doesn’t change, the effect wears off.”
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