Tirzepatide's weight numbers landed in bariatric surgery territory

Up to 63 percent of participants taking tirzepatide lost at least 20 percent of their body weight over 72 weeks in the phase 3 SURMOUNT-1 trial. On the highest of the three weekly doses, 78 percent lost at least 15 percent.

What the body gave up matters as much as what the scale said. Participants shed about three times as much fat mass as lean mass, the ratio a diet and exercise plan tends to produce, and visceral fat fell 40 percent. The investigator presenting the work set that against surgery: roughly 17 percent average loss after a gastric band, 25 percent after a sleeve, 33 percent after a bypass.

Those body composition figures rest on a far narrower base than the weight figures. They come from a retrospective subanalysis of participants scanned by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, in age groups of 99, 41 and 20 people, not from a prespecified endpoint. Lilly paid for the trial, and the investigator who presented it sits on the company's paid scientific advisory board.

Still unsettled is who supplies what a 72-week protocol does not: the food, the strength work, the follow-up around a weekly injection. The session moderator made that point from the floor, and any of it belongs with a qualified clinician who knows a person's health history.

Read the full story at Medscape en Español ↗

Retatrutide is investigational and is not FDA-approved. Other medicines referenced here are covered as third-party news for educational awareness only. Catalyst does not present this information as medical advice, treatment guidance, or a claim of safety, efficacy, or approval.