A new study has found that a diabetes medicine called tirzepatide can help people lower their blood sugar and lose weight faster than other common treatments.
The study was done by researchers in the UK at the East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust.
Type 2 diabetes is a long-term condition where the body has trouble using insulin the right way. Insulin is a hormone that helps control how much sugar is in your blood.
When insulin doesn’t work well, sugar stays in the blood and builds up. This can cause serious problems over time, like heart disease, kidney damage, and nerve problems.
To manage type 2 diabetes, people often take medicine, eat healthy foods, and exercise. Tirzepatide is a newer medicine that copies the action of two natural hormones in the body, called GLP-1 and GIP.
These hormones help lower blood sugar and also reduce hunger, which helps people lose weight. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved tirzepatide in May 2022 to treat type 2 diabetes.
In this study, researchers compared tirzepatide with two other diabetes treatments: semaglutide (another shot-based medicine) and insulin degludec (a type of insulin). People in the study were also eating healthy and taking other diabetes pills.
The results showed that tirzepatide helped people reach their blood sugar goals faster than the other two treatments. People taking tirzepatide reached a common target blood sugar level (called HbA1c below 7%) in about 8 weeks. In comparison, those taking semaglutide or insulin degludec needed about 12 weeks to reach the same goal.
For a stricter goal (an HbA1c of 6.5% or lower), tirzepatide helped people reach it in 12 weeks. Semaglutide took 16 weeks, and insulin degludec took 24 weeks. This shows that tirzepatide works more quickly.
The study also found that tirzepatide helped people lose weight faster. Losing weight is very helpful for people with type 2 diabetes. Even losing a small amount, like 5% of your body weight, can improve blood sugar and reduce the risk of heart problems.
People who took higher doses of tirzepatide (10 mg or 15 mg) lost at least 5% of their body weight in just 12 weeks. Those taking semaglutide needed about 24 weeks to lose the same amount.
This faster weight loss is important. Reaching health goals more quickly can help people stay motivated and feel better sooner. Dr. Adie Viljoen, who led the study, said that helping people see progress earlier can make a big difference in how well they manage their diabetes.
These findings suggest that tirzepatide could be one of the most effective treatments for type 2 diabetes. It helps control blood sugar and leads to weight loss faster than other options. More people may benefit from this medicine as doctors learn more about how well it works.
If you care about diabetes, please read studies about a cure for type 2 diabetes, and these vegetables could protect against kidney damage in diabetes.
For more information about diabetes, please see recent studies about bone drug that could lower risk of type 2 diabetes, and results showing eating more eggs linked to higher risk of type 2 diabetes.
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