A combination of semaglutide and a second injected hormone analogue produced about 6.6 percentage points more weight loss than semaglutide on its own, according to a meta-analysis of eight randomised trials in 6,898 people published on 15 September. The combination, CagriSema, is not something a reader in the United States can fill a prescription for: … Read more
Asked to choose between hypothetical weight-loss drugs, 800 American adults ranked how a drug is taken above how much weight it takes off. In a discrete-choice survey published on 17 September, route of administration was the single most important attribute driving choice, ahead of average weight loss, cardiovascular risk reduction and the share of people … Read more
If you take a GLP-1 drug and have spinal fusion surgery scheduled, the largest synthesis of the evidence so far found no sign that the drug makes the operation riskier. A systematic review and meta-analysis published on 17 September pooled seven studies covering 28,525 adults who underwent lumbar fusion, and found no statistically significant difference … Read more
Fewer than a third of commercially insured US adults who started a GLP-1 drug for obesity were still taking it consistently a year later, an analysis of 201,229 claims records has found. About 64% fell into one of three discontinuation patterns: stopping almost immediately, stopping within a few months, or tailing off later in the … Read more
Just under 17% of 10- to 17-year-olds who started a GLP-1 drug were diagnosed with a nutritional deficiency or a related complication within the following year, an analysis of US insurance claims has found. Most of those diagnoses were vitamin D deficiency. Fewer than a quarter of the teenagers saw anyone for nutrition counselling within … Read more
A five-day fast produced a fall in body mass index that was still partly present twelve weeks later, and the mix of bacteria in a person’s gut beforehand helped predict how much of it they kept, according to a randomised trial published on 16 September in Genome Medicine. The study involved 38 healthy adults under … Read more
A dual GLP-1/GIP receptor agonist made by a Chinese biotech produced up to 18.3% weight loss over 24 weeks in a placebo-controlled phase 2 trial, according to results published on 17 September in Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism. The drug, BGM0504, acts on the same two gut-hormone receptors as tirzepatide. The trial was small, at 120 … Read more
One of the open questions about GLP-1 drugs is whether they are a good idea in people who are already frail — older, carrying several conditions, less able to absorb a period of appetite loss. A new analysis of the SELECT trial, published in JAMA Cardiology on 16 September 2026, sorted all 17,604 participants by … Read more