In combination with diet and exercise, the diabetes drug exenatide helped nondiabetic, obese individuals lose over three times more weight than those receiving a placebo, or dummy treatment, for 6 months.
The results of the new study will be presented Thursday at The Endocrine Society's 91st Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.
Previous studies show that exenatide, an injectable medication marketed as Byetta (Amylin Pharmaceuticals and Eli Lilly and Company), not only lowers blood sugar but also can result in weight loss in some people with diabetes. This study, financed by both pharmaceutical companies, is "the first to assess the effect of exenatide on body weight in nondiabetic obese individuals," said the principal investigator, Michael Trautmann, MD, a researcher with Eli Lilly in Indianapolis.
"Drug therapy is considered important adjunctive treatment to diet and exercise in the successful management of obesity," Trautmann said. "To date, however, there are few effective drugs that help obese people lose weight."
Trautmann and colleagues studied 152 patients in the United States - 27 men and 125 women - who were obese (body mass index, or BMI, greater than 30). The study subjects had an average weight of about 241 pounds (108.6 kilograms) and an average BMI of 39.6. Of the 152 subjects, 38 (25%) had impaired glucose tolerance. None of the subjects took another weight loss medication during the study or in the several months preceding the study.