Staggering results of huge weight loss experiment on people using ‘Godzilla of weight loss drugs’ retatrutide
Results from clinical tests of retatrutide, a newly developed weight loss drug, appear to show it's good at doing its job.
Made by Eli Lilly, the company behind Mounjaro, retatrutide is a 'triple agonist' medication which triggers three parts of the brain while it does its job.
Basically, if Novo Nordisk's Wegovy is a 'single agonist' that mimics the GLP-1 hormone and Mounjaro does that as well as activating GIP, retatrutide does both of those and also activates the body's receptors for glucagon as it tells your brain to eat less.
In testing the weight loss drug they found that after 80 weeks of use there'd been a significant reduction in the body weight of the people taking it.
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"Across five positive Phase 3 studies, retatrutide has shown powerful efficacy, and we believe it could be an important future tool in the management of cardiometabolic health," said Dr Kenneth Custer, executive vice president and president, Lilly Cardiometabolic Health.
Following the TRIUMPH-1 tests to look into the impact of the various side effects each dose of the drug might give people, there have been further experiments which have measured the effectiveness at doing what they say on the tin.
TRIUMPH-2 test results
The TRIUMPH-2 test studied retatrutide doses of 4mg, 9mg and 12mg on patients who had type 2 diabetes and were considered to be overweight, with an average BMI of 38.2, over a period of 80 weeks.
This group weighed on average 106.4kg, or 234.6lbs if that's how you like to do your measuring.
A group in the placebo category who were given drugs that didn't work lost on average four percent of their body weight, but the results were much more dramatic among those who actually got the drug.
Those on 4mg of retatrutide a week lost on average 12.7 percent of body weight, otherwise known as 13.5kg or 29.8lbs.
Folks on the increased dose of 9mg had even better results, typically shedding 19.1 percent of bodyweight which comes out to 20.6kg or a loss of 45.4lbs.
Meanwhile, the people who got the strongest dose of 12mg saw their weight loss climb to 20.8 percent, meaning that after 80 weeks they were walking around carrying 22.5kg less in weight, or 49.6lbs if you want to stick to imperial measurements.
That's not the only test they've been doing with this weight loss drug, as a further test was done for adults who had 'severe obesity' and were confirmed to have cardiovascular disease.
We've had TRIUMPH-1 and TRIUMPH-2 tests, so guess what they called this one?
TRIUMPH-3 test results
This test dropped the 4mg dosage of the drug and went for people with an average BMI of 40.4 who weighed 111.4kg, or 245.6lbs.
In this case the placebo group again only lost a little bit of weight, just an average of 3.2 percent of their body weight over 80 weeks.
However, 9mg of retatrutide for this group over that time period resulted in shedding an average of 21.6 percent of body weight, which means they dropped 23.9kg or 52.7lbs.
That's pretty impressive stuff, but the 12mg of weight loss drug for this group had the most pronounced effect out of everyone as it led to a staggering weight loss of 22.6 percent, otherwise known as 25.3kg or 55.8lbs.
Shedding more than 25kg in weight over the course of 80 weeks is progress not to be sniffed at.
While those are clinical trials and the weight loss drug hasn't been approved for a mass rollout yet that is likely to be a further step on the path.
Just be mindful that since it's not publicly available at the moment anyone who says they can sell it to you is flogging a fake, which comes with all sorts of health hazards.
Joe Harker