aAs popular as newer groups of weight loss drugs like Wegovy and Zepbound are, not everyone reacts the same way.
In a new presentation at Digestive Disease Week meeting Dr. Andres Acosta, associate professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Washington, reported that a genetic test he developed can identify which people are most likely to respond to semaglutide (Wegovy) and which people will not.
a test called My PhenomResearch from Phenomics, a company co-founded by Acosta, classifies people into different types of weight gain based on a combination of genetics and other factors. Dr. Acosta identified approximately 24 genes associated with obesity and his more than 6,000 variants of these genes to classify people who suffer from weight gain into his four categories:
- hungry brain: No matter how much people eat, they don't feel full.
- hungry gut: People eat until they're full, but about an hour later they feel hungry again.
- emotional hunger: People who eat to cope with emotional problems or to reward themselves, regardless of physiological signals of hunger.
- slow burn: People who cannot quickly burn off calories even if they ingest them.
In his latest presentation (results not yet published in the journal), Acosta reported that Hungry Gut's MyPhenome test predicts who will respond to semaglutide with 75% accuracy.
“This means a lot because, first, for the patient, they don't have to go through any more trial and error. Second, as a doctor, I'm asking my patients to spend or pay $1,000 a month. So we want to know which patients will respond.''If the drug is covered by insurance, the out-of-pocket cost will be higher,'' he says. Having a better idea of whether a person will respond to a drug like his Wegovy could also reduce access issues by directing only the best candidates to the drug. “This could change the way obesity is managed,” he says.
read more: Is Ozempic a new anti-inflammatory drug?
The study involved a small group of 84 overweight or obese patients (only some with diabetes) who provided saliva samples for the MyPhenome test for genetic analysis and also completed a questionnaire about their dietary habits. . Each took semaglutide for a year, with most reaching their maximum dose. Because the hungry gut profile involves appetite, and semaglutide works by suppressing the desire to eat, Acosta says people who fit this category are most likely to lose weight with semaglutide. discovered. In this study, 51 out of 84 cases, or approximately 60%, were classified as hungry gut.
“Patients with Hungry Gut lost 19.5% of their weight after one year, compared to 10% in patients with negative Hungry Gut,” Dr. Acosta says. “This is almost double the amount of weight loss. For the first time, we were able to identify the best responders.”
Acosta and his team say large studies replicating these initial findings need to be completed before the test can be used more widely. Currently, doctors can order the MyPhenome test for their patients from Phenomics' website, which provides another piece of information for doctors and patients to decide whether a drug is right for them.
“My dream is to treat chronic diseases like obesity in a very precise way, the same way we treat cancer,” Acosta says of the test's next steps. It's also possible that as more next-generation weight loss drugs are approved, drug companies will simultaneously develop screening tests to identify those most likely to benefit from the drugs. Insurers may also begin to rely on such tests when making reimbursement decisions to confirm whether patients are receiving appropriate treatment.
Acosta says the test's potential is not limited to semaglutide. For some people, some older weight loss drugs may be just as effective, but until now doctors have prescribed them using a trial-and-error method. All existing weight-loss drugs could be better optimized for the right patients if there were a way to more precisely match which drugs work for patients.
