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New weight-loss pill could be more powerful than Ozempic

A new kind of weight-loss pill looks set to turbocharge dieting, as the first trial results show that it causes weight loss much faster than Ozempic.

People taking the new medicine, called amycretin, lost 13 per cent of their weight in the first three months of the trial. That compares with some Ozempic-type medicines taking one year to produce 15 per cent weight loss.

“This early phase research on a new oral combination is exciting, given the speed of weight loss seen,” said Professor Naveed Sattar, a heart specialist at the University of Glasgow.

Obesity treatment has recently been revolutionised by the arrival of Ozempic (also known as Semaglutide and Wegovy) , which mimic a gut hormone called GLP-1.

This hormone, which is normally released after eating, lowers appetite and promotes production of insulin, which controls blood sugar. The GLP-1 mimics therefore cause both weight loss and help in type 2 diabetes.

Unlike previous weight-loss drugs, the GLP-1 mimics seem to be both effective and generally safe – although people do need to raise the dose gradually, over several weeks, to avoid side effects such as nausea and vomiting.

This first generation of weight-loss drugs also has to be given by injections, which puts some people off. But several tablet versions of the medicines that work through similar mechanisms are on their way.

Amycretin, the latest weight-loss pill, mimics GLP-1, like Ozempic, as well as another hormone called amylin.

Drugs that mimic just amylin are already in use for diabetes, where they have also been found to cause weight loss.

But combining the effects of both GLP-1 and amylin in one tablet seems to have produced a medicine that causes even more weight loss, according a study presented on Tuesday at a conference called the European Association for the Study of Diabetes, held in Madrid.

In this trial, 124 people received either amycretin tablets, at a medium or high dose, or placebo tablets. After 12 weeks, those taking the highest dose of amycretin had a weight loss of 13 per cent, compared with one per cent for those in the placebo group.

In a similar trial of Wegovy, people had lost about 6 per cent of their weight within three months.

While some people experienced nausea and vomiting, this was mainly mild to moderate, said the researchers, from the manufacturer, Novo Nordisk.

“A single molecule that targets both amylin and GLP-1 biology in tablet form could offer a more convenient approach to achieving better outcomes for individuals with overweight or obesity,” they said.

The results suggest that as well as causing people to slim down faster, amycretin may cause people to lose more weight in total if they continue taking the medicine for longer than three months.

That’s because with the current weight-loss injections, weight loss per week tends to gradually decline before weight finally levels off. In the new results for amycretin, people’s weight loss had not begun to plateau at 3 months.

But we need to wait until larger and longer-term trials are complete before we can assume the new weight loss pills will prove a success, said Professor Sattar. “Far larger scale trials will be needed to test such medicines in due course, including their effect on disease outcomes.”

He added: “What I hope is, over the next five years, the newer combinations continue to show the same level of safety. And if they do, and if they’re giving big weight loss, we will continue to see the benefits that we’ve seen already with semaglutide, potentially even on a grander scale, because of more weight loss.”

Dr Nerys Astbury, a nutrition scientist at the University of Oxford, said: “Having a greater range of safe and effective prescription medications opens up the pharmaceutical treatment options for people living with obesity. It is possible that some people might find the oral medications more acceptable than the injectable GLP-1 agonists are currently available.”

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