Pairing semaglutide, a drug used to deal with diabetes, with a minimally invasive endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty (ESG) can present vital weight reduction advantages for sufferers who usually are not candidates for invasive weight reduction surgical procedure, in accordance with a examine offered at Digestive Disease Week 2021.
For the double-blind examine, the researchers randomized 61 sufferers present process ESG into 2 teams: 1 receiving semaglutide—an injectable glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor that has been discovered to stimulate weight reduction—1 month after the process, and the opposite receiving a placebo administered by way of look-alike injector pens. Participants had been monitored every month for physique weight and physique composition, with blood panels taken each 3 months.
According to the authors of the examine, sufferers receiving semaglutide misplaced 26.7% of their complete physique weight on common, in comparison with 19.6% within the management group. The semaglutide group misplaced 86.3% of their extra weight (the quantity of weight the individuals wanted to lose to achieve regular BMI) in comparison with 60.4% for the management group. Additionally, physique fats by weight decreased by 12.7% within the semaglutide group versus 9% within the management group, and glycated hemoglobin ranges fell 0.95 for the semaglutide group and 0.61 for the controls.
“As the worldwide weight problems fee continues to climb, so do the variety of folks searching for bariatric surgical procedure to deal with their situation,” stated Anna Carolina Hoff, MD, lead researcher on the examine and founder and medical director of Angioskope Brazil, São José dos Campos, in a press launch. “Surgical procedures are a number of the most profitable methods to assist sufferers shed weight, however they will ultimately include issues. Our examine reveals that sufferers might not should endure invasive surgical procedure to get related outcomes.”
More invasive surgical procedures, akin to laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy, include elevated prices and the next danger for issues, akin to gastroesophageal reflux illness. These procedures are usually restricted to sufferers with a BMI of no less than 35 with comorbidities, or a BMI above 40.
ESG will be carried out at an earlier stage of illness and at a decrease BMI, permitting extra sufferers to get the remedy they want earlier than their illness progresses. Providing earlier remedy to sufferers with weight problems can scale back the chance of mortality and comorbidities, in addition to decrease prices related to remedy.
“ESG has been accessible to sufferers for years, but it surely has not at all times been as profitable as surgical choices in serving to sufferers shed weight,” Hoff stated within the launch. “We now have a minimally invasive process that may be simply as profitable when mixed with semaglutide and will be made accessible to much more folks seeking to lose a major quantity of weight.”
ESG is carried out by way of guiding a tool by way of the affected person’s throat into the abdomen, the place an endoscopist makes use of sutures to lower the scale of the abdomen. This assists in weight reduction by limiting the quantity {that a} affected person can eat. Patients are candidates for ESG if they’ve a BMI at or above 30, and eating regimen and train haven’t helped them shed weight, or if they aren’t a candidate for surgical procedure, or don’t want to pursue surgical procedure.
Long-term sturdiness of the remedy nonetheless has but to be decided, in accordance with the researchers.
REFERENCE
Pairing bariatric process with diabetes drug will increase weight reduction [news release]. EurekAlert; May 14, 2021. Accessed May 17, 2021. https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-05/ddw-pbp051221.php
