The cutting-edge weight-loss drug Zepbound can protect obese people from developing type 2 diabetes, a new clinical trial has found.

Zepbound reduced the risk of diabetes in obese prediabetic patients by more than 90% during a three-year period compared to placebo, trial results show.

“These results show that type 2 diabetes may be prevented, even in people who are on the verge of it, by using a medicine that causes weight loss,” researcher Dr. Louis Aronne, director of the Comprehensive Weight Control Center at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City, said in a news release.

People with prediabetes have higher-than-normal blood sugar levels, but have not yet developed full-blown type 2 diabetes. Obesity is a risk factor both for prediabetes and for type 2 diabetes.

For this clinical trial, more than 2,500 obese people were randomly assigned to receive one of three different doses of Zepbound, or a placebo, for more than three years. Of those patients, more than 1,000 had prediabetes.

Zepbound (tirzepatide) in an injectable drug that activates receptors in the body for glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) and glucose-dependent insulinotropic peptide (GIP) receptors, researchers said.

These receptors help slow digestion, reduce appetite and improve blood sugar control. GLP-1 drugs have been shown to promote significant weight loss.

In this trial, patients taking Zepbound had lost 12% to 20% of their initial weight after three years on the drug, with more weight lost at higher doses. By comparison, those on placebo lost a little more than 1% of their weight on average.

The drug also helped patients avoid diabetes. Only 1% of obese prediabetic patients taking Zepbound progressed to type 2 diabetes, compared with 13% of patients taking a placebo.

Based on these results, Zepbound could feasibly become the first approved treatment for prediabetes, Aronne said.

“Think about the impact these types of weight-loss drugs can have in preventing not only diabetes but also many other common diabetes-related complications such as heart disease, liver and kidney disease, sleep apnea, arthritis, and more,” Arrone said.

The findings were recently published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

More information

Harvard Medical School has more on GLP-1 weight loss drugs.

SOURCE: Weill Cornell Medicine, news release

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