New Potential Weight Loss Option: A Diabetes Medication

Medicine used to help patients manage their diabetes may also help people who are significantly overweight drop pounds, the drug company says, but a New York endocrinologist says more research is needed into the drug’s long-term impacts when used for weight loss.

Novo Nordisk’s Liraglutide has been used in smaller doses to treat people with diabetes.

“This is almost double the amount of the same medication that we would use to treat someone with diabetes,” says Aren Skolnick, DO, an attending endocrinologist in the North Shore-LIJ Health System. “We don’t know what the long-term effects of this treatment are, but at least for now it’s promising.”

It seems the medicine can help people who are severely overweight or obese lose about four percent of their body weight, which can have a significant impact on their future health. While it might be exciting that a pill can do all of this, it doesn’t mean that proper diet and exercise should be ignored.

“Diet and exercise are certainly the mainstays for losing weight, but for those who are obese and have co-morbidity such as diabetes or hypertension and have tried diet and exercise, this could help them achieve a significant weight loss,” Dr. Skolnick says.