2024-09-13 09:19:33
Long-term effects unknown
Liraglutide: Is the weight loss injection for children now available?
Updated on 13.09.2024 – 10:11Reading time: 3 min.
Overweight children often become overweight adults. Could weight loss injections break this process? There are now new results on one active ingredient.
Severe obesity is a major problem for many children – even more so because obese children often become obese adults. Could weight loss injections also be a solution for people under 18? A study shows that the active ingredient liraglutide is effective and safe for children. The effect was investigated in six to twelve year olds.
“So far, there is no medication available to treat obesity in this age group,” says Daniel Weghuber from the University Hospital of Salzburg, who was not involved in the study. Most adolescents with obesity already had it when they started school. It is therefore important to intervene in children as early as possible.
Up to now, the only method available has been lifestyle changes as part of family education, explains Weghuber, head of the University Clinic for Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. “That’s easy to say, but very difficult to implement.” In this respect, the use of liraglutide could be an important additional step, especially in children with an extreme form of obesity.
New data show that overweight and obesity are a serious problem among children and adolescents. According to the study, one in six children in Germany is overweight, and one in 17 is even obese.
As with adolescents and adults, the question arises as to how suitable and safe the substance is for long-term therapy. “This question applies not only to children between the ages of six and twelve, but to all people on this therapy,” says Weghuber. All that is known so far is that the majority of those affected regain weight when the drug is stopped.
According to current knowledge, liraglutide must be taken over a long period of time, over decades. What long-term effects this could have is still unclear, because this and similar drugs have not been in use long enough.
Nerys Astbury of the University of Oxford – also not involved in the study – also points out: “Although there was no evidence that liraglutide had any adverse effects on changes in height, bone age or pubertal status, further longer-term follow-up of participants and their growth patterns is needed.”
Martin Wabitsch from Ulm University Hospital explains that there is hope that early use of the drug will lead to such a significant effect that the dose can later be reduced or the drug can even be discontinued altogether.
The new study, which was presented in the New England Journal of Medicine, ran for 56 weeks. It involved 82 severely obese children in the USA. 56 of them received a daily injection of liraglutide (brand name “Saxenda”), 26 placebo injections. All participants were also given individual advice on healthy eating and physical activity, write the researchers from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.
The average body mass index (BMI) decreased by 5.8 percent for the children in the liraglutide group, while it increased by 1.6 percent in the test group. In general, all children gained weight as they grew, but the children in the liraglutide group gained only 1.6 percent of their initial weight, while those in the placebo group gained ten percent of their initial weight. The observed weight change in the treated children is ten times greater than that expected from a lifestyle change, says Weghuber.
- BMI calculator: Is your weight in the healthy range?
Side effects as in older subjects
The side effects observed corresponded to those previously observed in analyses with adolescents and adults, the study continues. These were common nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. Almost eleven percent of the children who received liraglutide stopped taking it due to the side effects.
Wabitsch assumes that in the future the drug will be used primarily for children with extreme obesity – “and certainly not for all children with obesity.” This small group of patients is characterized by a strong biological predisposition to obesity. A defect in the central regulation of hunger and satiety is characteristic. “This is exactly where liraglutide comes in.”
Liraglutide is a so-called glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist. It binds to the GLP-1 receptor. This inhibits appetite, among other things. The active ingredient is also approved in Europe for the treatment of diabetes and obesity in adolescents and adults.