Scientists want to know who will benefit most, what the long-term effects might be and whether the treatments will change views on obesity
It’s rare to find a product so successful that its makers stop advertising it. But that’s what happened to the weight-loss drug Wegovy in May. In the United States, where prescription drugs can be advertised, developer Novo Nordisk pulled its television adverts because it couldn’t keep up with demand.
But researchers running those clinical trials noticed a surprising side effect: participants’ appetites diminished. Although the initial GLP-1 mimics were designed to work in the gut, the hormone’s receptors also exist in brain regions associated with appetite regulation and reward.
Although the drug’s ability to penetrate the brain has not been studied formally, it can access a region that is unshielded by the blood–brain barrier and deals with food intake, says Elissa Snook, a media spokesperson at Amgen. Furthermore, Snook notes, signals transmitted through the peripheral nervous system probably help to curb appetite, so direct access to the brain might not be necessary.
In that mid-stage clinical trial, participants lost, on average, 24% of their body weight when taking the highest dose for almost a yearImitating each hormone individually can lead to weight loss, Tschöp says. But together, they work synergistically to keep each other in check. GIP activation suppresses GLP-1 activation’s side effects, and both of these hormone copycats stimulate insulin, preventing glucagon from raising blood glucose too high.
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