A quarter of obese teens treated with Wegovy returned to normal weight

Far more obese teenage patients treated with 2.4 mg semaglutide (Wegovy) returned to normal weight or fell below the obesity threshold compared to placebo-treated patients next analysis) STEP TEENS Trial found.

During the 68-week trial, 44.9% of treated obese teenage patients returned to normal weight or fell into the overweight category, compared with only 12.1% in the placebo group (OR 22.7, 95 % CI 7.6-67.9). Aaron S. Kelly, Ph.D., of the University of Minnesota School of Medicine, Minneapolis, and his colleagues.

By the end of the study, about 25% and 2%, respectively, had dropped to normal weight, according to the results of the study, presented at the annual European Obesity Congress in Dublin and published at the same time. obesity.

“These results underscore the high clinical efficacy of semaglutide for obese youth,” Professor Kelly said in a statement. “In a practical sense, we found that semaglutide reduced weight to levels below what is defined as clinical obesity in nearly 50% of the teenagers in our trial. is historically unprecedented for non-bariatric therapies.”

“If an adolescent has a medical indication for an anti-obesity drug, I believe that providers should offer it as part of a comprehensive treatment approach,” Kelly added at a press conference. “When it comes to treating obesity, it’s not just one. The trial included lifestyle interventions, anti-obesity drugs if needed, and possibly metabolic surgery and bariatric surgery. will also be done.”

At the start of the trial, teens taking glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists were generally divided into three obese classes: Class I (n=69, participants 31.6%), class II (n=69; 31.6% of participants 69; 33.1%), class III (n=62; 35.3%).

By the end of the trial:

• 25.4% of semaglutide-treated participants were of normal weight
• 19.5% were overweight
• 22% were class I obese
• 19.5% were class II obese
• 13.6% had Class III obesity

On the other hand, the proportion of people falling into class III increased among those taking placebo (19% to 22.4%), whereas obesity classes I (39.7% to 32.8%) and II (41.4% to 32.8%) decreased. Only 10.3% of those who took the placebo were overweight, and 1.7% of them were normal weight.

Obesity classes are defined by the CDC’s body mass index (BMI) growth chart.

• Class I: BMI between 95% and less than 120% of the 95th percentile
• Class II: BMI ≥120% and <140% of the 95th percentile
• Class III: 140% or greater of BMI 95th percentile

Also, semaglutide plus placebo was 23.5 times more likely to improve teens in at least one BMI category (OR 23.5, 95% CI 9.9-55.5, P.<0.0001), seen in 73.7% of treated patients compared to 19% of placebo patients. A total of 44.9% of teens who received semaglutide improved his BMI categories by 2 or more, compared to only 3.4% of teens who received placebo.

These findings build on key findings presented in the 2022 STEP Teens trial. obesity week Posted at Annual Meeting New England Journal of Medicine. Here, his mean change in BMI from baseline was a 16.1% decrease with semaglutide compared to his 0.6% increase with placebo (P.On average, participants taking semaglutide lost 15.3 kg (33.7 lbs), while those taking placebo gained 2.4 kg (5.3 lbs).

These data are FDA approves injection Obese people over the age of 12 in December 2022.

“The extent of weight loss is unprecedented,” said study lead author Daniel Weguber, M.D., Ph.D., of the Paracelsus Medical School in Salzburg, Austria. Today’s Medpage At the ObesityWeek meeting. “Suddenly, after years of setbacks, patients actually lost weight. They’d never seen it before.”

Popular agents initially Approved for Adults In June 2021.

Although this study was not designed to test for sex differences, the difference in BMI treatment was numerically, but not statistically, greater in women than in men. It was similar in patients aged 12 to <15 years compared with those aged 15 to <18 years.

Only obese patients were included in this post hoc analysis. Mean age was 15.5 years, over 60% of participants were female, and most were Tanner stage 5. More than 80% were euglycemic.

Semaglutide was added to a lifestyle intervention consisting of healthy nutrition counseling and a goal of 60 minutes of moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity per day.

“A question I get often is, ‘Will this solve the obesity problem? Should it be for everyone?'” Kelly said. “No, no. It doesn’t solve the obesity problem, but it’s an important piece of the puzzle that helps solve it, especially for people who are already obese.”