Ellie Kemp
A new drug could help counter one of Wegovy’s most concerning side effects while also enhancing weight loss, a new study suggests.
Injectable weight-loss drugs have surged in popularity, largely driven by the rise of Ozempic, a diabetes medication that’s broken into pop culture thanks to its fast-working results.
Like any medication, though, Novo Nordisk's Wegovy and Ozempic and Eli Lilly's Mounjaro - which all contain a GLP-1 receptor agonist - carry side effects.
Some can be mild, from stomach aches and bloating to tiredness and feeling sick. But one worrying consequence of rapid weight loss can impact our health in the longer term: loss of muscle mass.
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This can increase the risk of falls, decrease your overall strength and lead to sarcopenia - the gradual loss of muscle mass, strength and function.
Now, though, a new drug from US pharmacy Regeneron could, when taken alongside Wegovy, help preserve muscle mass while aiding with weight loss.
A study, which is still only in its mid-stages, found the drug, trevogrumab, helped patients preserve up to 51 percent of lean mass, reports Reuters.
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Some 599 patients were involved, and it was found that people who took just Wegovy lost fat, but also lost about 7.9 pounds of muscle.
People who took a combination of Wegovy and trevogrumab lost less muscle - 3.7 pounds - and more fat.
The pairing helped people lose up to 11.3 percent of their body weight, compared to 10.4 percent with Wegovy alone.
If future data holds up, trevogrumab could become the first add-on therapy to fix a major side effect of GLP-1s, making treatments like Wegovy even more appealing and, more importantly, better tolerated.
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The US Food and Drug Administration said drugs need to show 'additional weight loss or other benefits,' such as improvement in patients' strength, for them to be considered for approval, however.
More data is needed on trevogrumab's safety, as well as its long-term effects on strength and overall health.
A triple drug combination was also tested - of Wegovy, Regeneron's trevogrumab and another antibody garetosmab.
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While it helped patients lose 13.2 percent of their body weight, it also yielded the highest rate of side effects among all the groups studied - 28 percent of people stopped taking the drug.
Two people in the triple combination group also died, but Regeneron does not yet know if this is linked to their treatment.
UNILAD has contacted Regeneron for comment.
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A Novo Nordisk spokesperson told UNILAD, in part: "Currently available data on body composition do not indicate an association of greater lean body mass loss over fat mass loss with semaglutide treatment and neither has any safety signal been identified in the clinical and post marketing data in relation to lean mass loss with semaglutide.
"Novo Nordisk continues to collect safety data on our marketed GLP-1 RAs and collaborate closely with the authorities to ensure patient safety."