July 23, 2024 – GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic were originally intended to treat diabetes, but their weight-loss effects quickly caught the nation’s attention. Over the past decade, the proportion of individuals using it for weight reduction has doubled, while the proportion of individuals taking GLP-1 to treat diabetes is declining.
This Resultspublished on Tuesday within the magazine Annals of Internal Medicineare essential because they reveal patterns in how GLP-1 is used to treat obesity and sort 2 diabetes. While the study cannot tell how many individuals within the U.S. are taking these drugs, it does provide insight into the health problems mostly faced by people taking GLP-1, in addition to which drugs are mostly used.
The drug semaglutide accounted for an estimated 88% of the brand new GLP-1 prescriptions written in 2023 and reviewed by the researchers. Semaglutide is the lively ingredient in Ozempic, which is approved to treat type 2 diabetes, and the lively ingredient in Wegovy, which is approved for weight reduction in individuals with other weight-related health problems corresponding to hypertension or heart disease.
For the study, researchers analyzed the health records of about 45 million people from 2011 to 2023 and located that greater than 870,000 of those people had received a brand new prescription for a drug from this list of GLP-1 during that period: albiglutide, dulaglutide, exenatide, liraglutide, lixisenatide and semaglutide.
The proportion of individuals using GLP-1 fell from 70% in 2015-2018 to 57% in 2019-2023. A line graph published with the study shows that the frequency of individuals being newly prescribed GLP-1 increases sharply after 2020. Semaglutide was approved by the FDA for weight reduction in 2021.
The researchers warned that the increasing use of GLP-1 to treat obesity may lead to further shortages of those drugs, as has often occurred lately.
“In addition, drug shortages could exacerbate existing nationwide racial and ethnic inequalities in [GLP-1] prescriptions,” they wrote, adding that approval of latest GLP-1 drugs to cut back heart risk would further impact access.
“These data suggest that more healthcare providers are recognizing the benefits of these medications for treating obesity, which represents a significant shift in public health,” said co-author Yee Hui Yeo, MD, clinical fellow within the Karsh Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, in a opinion“However, there is also concern about potential drug shortages and the need to ensure that patients with diabetes continue to have access to these treatments.”
The FDA currently lists several doses of Wegovy as in brief supply, but Ozempic is now available, the database shows.