Experimental Drug Yields Dramatic Weight Loss

NY Times -  An experimental shot helped participants in a large trial lose far more weight than obesity drugs already on the market, Eli Lilly, the maker, announced on Thursday.... The drug, retatrutide, appears to be the most powerful yet in a wave of injections and pills that have transformed the treatment of obesity — so much so that some participants in other research have said they stopped taking retatrutide because they felt they were losing too much weight.

If the drug’s effects do not wane with time, and if its results in the real world echo those in the clinical trial, it may extend the notion of what a weight loss drug can accomplish. Eli Lilly reported the findings in a news release. The results have not yet undergone peer review or been published in a medical journal....

Eli Lilly reported that 11 percent of participants who got the highest dose dropped out of the study because of side effects, higher than the figures seen with less powerful obesity drugs that are already available.  All of these drugs often cause side effects like nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and constipation, but those effects are rarely severe....

The results announced by Eli Lilly were from a randomized study of 2,339 patients who were obese or overweight. Those who got the highest dose of the drug had lost 70 pounds on average, or 28 percent of their body weight, after 80 weeks, the company said.