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A diabetes drug, semaglutide, could help teenagers with obesity. The results of a study conducted on 200 children reveal unprecedented efficacy.
Childhood obesity, a growing scourge
In France, obesity affects 4% of children over 6 and 5% of teenage girls. Worldwide, nearly one child in five is affected. This chronic disease is linked to a reduced life expectancy and an increased risk of developing serious health problems such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, sleep apnea and certain cancers. Obese teens are also more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, and other psychological issues. Faced with this growing scourge, doctors could have a new weapon tomorrow.
Faced with these increasing figures, a study reveals the effect of a simple drug against diabetes: semaglutide.
Unprecedented efficiency
researchers tested the effectiveness of a drug against diabetes (semaglutide) on nearly 200 obese adolescents aged 12 to 17 years.
Semaglutide is an obesity drug that mimics a hormone called glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) to target areas of the brain that decrease appetite and improve eating control. This medication has been approved for chronic weight management in obese or overweight adults.
Followed for 68 weeks, they were divided into two groups: 133 of them received a weekly injection of 2.4 mg of semaglutide (marketed in France under the name Ozempic), and 67 received a placebo. All adolescents also benefited from nutritional advice and an adapted physical activity programme.
Results ? After 68 weeks,
- Teenagers treated with the drug lost an average of 16% of their initial weight, or around 17 kilos (compared to a weight gain of 0.6% for the placebo group);
- 73% of treated adolescents lost at least 5% of their weight (compared to 18% in the placebo group), 62% lost at least 10% and 37% lost at least 20%.
A real weapon in addition to lifestyle advice
For the researchers, these results are promising:
“In obese adolescents, once-weekly treatment with a 2.4 mg dose of semaglutide plus a lifestyle intervention resulted in a greater reduction in BMI than a lifestyle intervention alone“, they conclude.
Because as the main author of the study points out, the lifestyle advice has despite all its limits: “Typically, we make lifestyle recommendations: eat more vegetables; avoid fried foods; not drinking soda… But unfortunately, we live in a very obesogenic environment, so it can be very difficult to make these changes. There is therefore a real need for safe and effective drugs to treat obesity“.
NO to diets, YES to WW!
Confirmed benefits on the quality of life of adolescents
And for the researchers, these results are really very positive. The analysis showed that the treated children had improvements in cardiovascular risk factors, including waist circumference, a measure of blood sugar called HbA1c, total cholesterol, triglycerides and liver enzymes compared to the placebo group. However, there was no statistically significant difference in blood pressure or good cholesterol (HDL Cholesterol) between the two groups.
Participants who took semaglutide also had better measures of weight-related quality of life, primarily due to improved physical comfort scores, compared to their peers on placebo.
The researchers note that it is the first obesity drug to be linked to such improvements in quality of life in adolescents.
Be careful, however, not to rush on this drug, as long as the health authorities have not validated these results. The use of ozempic for weight loss has already gone viral on TikTok to the point that its use for people with diabetes (for whom it is marketed) may miss it. To find out more about this episode, read our article “Tiktok trend: the antidiabetic Ozempic, used for weight loss, is out of stock”).
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