People with Type 2 diabetes often face two difficult challenges at the same time: keeping blood sugar under control and managing excess body weight.
A new clinical trial suggests that one experimental medicine may help with both.
Results from the Phase 3 TRANSCEND-T2D-1 study were published in The Lancet and showed that the investigational drug retatrutide produced large improvements in blood sugar levels together with substantial weight loss.
Type 2 diabetes affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide. The condition develops when the body’s response to insulin becomes weaker, causing sugar to remain in the bloodstream instead of entering cells where it is used for energy.
If left untreated, high blood sugar can lead to heart disease, stroke, kidney failure, blindness and nerve damage. Doctors therefore aim not only to lower blood sugar but also to reduce body weight, blood pressure and other health risks.
Many newer diabetes medicines already help people lose weight, but retatrutide works in a different way. It activates three hormone receptors involved in controlling hunger, metabolism and blood sugar.
These are called GLP-1, GIP and glucagon receptors. By stimulating all three, the medicine appears to reduce appetite, improve blood sugar control and encourage the body to burn more energy.
The researchers enrolled adults whose diabetes was not adequately controlled with healthy lifestyle changes alone. Participants had not started diabetes medicines before joining the study. They received either weekly injections of retatrutide or placebo for 40 weeks while researchers monitored their progress.
By the end of the trial, people taking retatrutide experienced much larger improvements than those receiving placebo. Average HbA1c levels fell by about 1.7% to 1.9%, while placebo reduced HbA1c by around 0.8%. Participants also lost an average of 11.5% to 15.3% of their body weight compared with only 2.6% in the placebo group.
The treatment was generally well tolerated. The most common side effects were nausea, diarrhea and other digestive problems. These were usually mild or moderate and became less troublesome over time.
Researchers say these findings suggest retatrutide could become a valuable new treatment for some people with Type 2 diabetes, particularly those needing greater improvements in both blood sugar and body weight. However, they stress that ongoing studies are essential because diabetes medicines are often taken for many years. Long-term safety, durability of weight loss and effects on heart, kidney and overall health still need to be confirmed.
The study represents an important step forward, but it should not be viewed as a final answer.
Larger and longer studies will help determine exactly which patients benefit the most and whether the advantages continue over time. For now, the results provide strong evidence that triple-action medicines may become an important new direction in diabetes care.
If you care about diabetes, please read studies about high vitamin D level linked to lower dementia risk in type 2 diabetes, and this eating habit could help reduce risk of type 2 diabetes.
For more information about nutrition, please see recent studies about unhealthy plant-based diets linked to metabolic syndrome, and results showing Mediterranean diet could help reduce the diabetes risk by 30%.
Source: University of North Carolina School of Medicine.
