New light shed on who benefits most from weight-loss jabs
Why it matters: Genetic insights could help personalize weight-loss jab prescriptions for the 1.6 million UK users, potentially improving efficacy and reducing severe side effects.
- Genetic variations in two genes are linked to greater weight loss and increased nausea when taking drugs like Wegovy and Mounjaro, according to research in Nature.
- People with a specific genetic variant can lose an average of 0.76kg (1.6 lbs) more weight, with those carrying two copies doubling that amount, a variant more common in individuals of European ancestry (64% carry one copy, 16% carry two copies) compared to African Americans (7% carry one copy).
- Another genetic variant could cause up to 1% of Mounjaro users to experience severe vomiting, nearly 15 times worse than normal, highlighting a potential predictor for adverse reactions.
- Professor Ruth Loos from the University of Copenhagen emphasizes that while the genetic effect is modest, it is comparable to other influencing factors like sex, age, and origin, though she notes the findings require replication in further studies.
- Weight-loss drugs like semaglutide (Ozempic, Wegovy) and tirzepatide (Mounjaro) typically show 14% and 20% weight loss in trials, respectively, but this study of 15,000 users found an average of 11.7% loss over eight months, with individual results ranging from 30% to none.
New research published in Nature suggests that variations in two specific genes linked to appetite and digestion can significantly influence how much weight individuals lose when taking popular drugs like Wegovy and Mounjaro, and may also predict severe side effects. This genetic insight, derived from 15,000 23andMe participants, could explain the wide variability in drug effectiveness, where some lose 30% of their body weight while others lose little to none.
