New research to be presented at the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) in Stockholm, Sweden, during September 19-23, 2022, has shown that once a week injection of the recently approved obesity drug, semaglutide halved the risk of type 2 diabetes.

The drug, recently approved  in the US and  provisionally approved in the UK for chronic weight management in obese or overweight adults with at least one weight-related condition such as high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes, among others., used in addition to a low-calorie diet and increased physical activity.

The study undertaken by the researchers of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, USA, used Cardiometabolic Disease Staging (CMDS) to predict the participants’ risk of developing type 2 diabetes in the next ten years.

“Semaglutide appears to be the most effective medication to date for treating obesity and is beginning to close the gap with the amount of weight loss following bariatric surgery,” says Dr W. Timothy Garvey of the Department of Nutrition Sciences, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA, who led the research said in a statement recently.

 Pointing out that the drug was approved based on findings during the trials that it reduces weight by over 15% on average when used together with a healthy lifestyle programme, Dr Garvey said, “This amount of weight loss is sufficient to treat or prevent a broad array of obesity complications that impair health and quality of life and is a game changer in obesity medicine.”

It may be recalled that while approving the drug, the United States Food and Drug Administration noted that having obesity or being overweight is a serious health issue associated with some leading causes of death, including heart disease, stroke and diabetes, and is linked to an increased risk of certain types of cancers.

As obesity is known to increase the risk of type 2 diabetes at least six times, the researchers were interested in finding out whether the drug could reduce this risk and carried out a new analysis of the data from two trials of semaglutide.

During the first trial (STEP1), 1,961 participants with overweight or obesity received an injection of 2.4mg of semaglutide or a placebo weekly for 68 weeks, while during the second trial (STEP4),  803 participants with overweight or obesity received weekly injections of 2.4mg semaglutide for 20 weeks.

Subsequently, they either remained on semaglutide or were switched to a placebo for the next 48 weeks. Additionally, participants in both trials received advice on diet and exercise.

Analysing the data, the researchers found that in the STEP1 participants who received semaglutide, the 10-year risk scores for type 2 diabetes decreased by 61%, from 18.2% at week 0 to 7.1% at week 68 compared to a 13% reduction in risk score for those who received placebo from 17.8% at week 0 to 15.6% at week 68.

In the STEP 4 participants, the largest decreases in risk scores were seen in the first 20 weeks from 20.6% at week 0 to 11.4% at week 20 and for those who continued receiving semaglutide, the risk score decreased further to 7.7%; but, in those who were switched to placebo, it rose to 15.4%, the researchers found.

“Semaglutide reduces the future risk of diabetes by over 60% in patients with obesity – this figure is similar whether a patient has prediabetes or normal blood sugar levels,” Dr Garvey said.

Pointing out that continuous treatment is required to maintain the benefit, he added, “Given the rising rates of obesity and diabetes, semaglutide could be used effectively to reduce the burden of these chronic diseases.”