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The result: obesity-related headache attacks were greatly reduced. The average weight loss was minus twelve percent.
obesity, defined with a body mass index of more than 30, is associated with a sometimes drastically increased risk of secondary diseases. These include cardiovascular disease, diabetes and other long-term complications. However, especially in severely overweight women of childbearing age, this can also be an increase in pressure in the skull (idiopathic intracranial hypertension/IIH) with frequent headache attacks and damage to the eyesight.
Injected under the skin
With these problems, “persistent weight loss is the main pillar to influence this clinical picture,” wrote a group of authors led by IIH specialist Gabriel Bsteh from the Vienna University Clinic for Neurology (MedUni/AKH) in the “Journal of Headache and Pain”. The scientists hypothesized that the use of the drug originally developed for the treatment of type 2 diabetes could also have an effect.
A total of 39 patients with the neurological complication of obesity recorded. The mean age was 33.6 years, 92.3 percent were women. The mean BMI value was 36.3. Finally, 13 of the test subjects received treatment with the GLP-1 receptor agonists (semaglutide or liraglutide) that can be injected regularly under the skin; the remaining study participants were to lose weight as much as possible in the conventional way.
Clear differences
The result: The subjects in the group that received the new drugs showed a weight loss of minus twelve percent within six months. In the control group, the participants only lost 2.8 percent of their initial weight. 69.2 percent of those treated with the drugs lost more than ten percent of their body weight, compared to just four percent of the control group. At the same time, however, the situation regarding the monthly registered days with headaches improved significantly: The test persons under the drug-based weight loss therapy reported an average of minus four days with symptoms, in the comparison group there was no change.
Negative psychological effects? EMA investigates substances
Success in losing weight and also an improvement in subsequent health problems, in this case neurological complications, could be achieved with the new therapies. As early as 2020, for example, a clinical study showed that diabetics treated with liraglutide suffered a heart attack or a similarly severe acute cardiovascular problem around 15 percent less often than a comparison group without such treatment. This might also be plausible for obese people with a high cardiovascular risk but without diabetes. But only time will tell.
However, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) is currently investigating whether substances such as semaglutide or liraglutide could lead to increased suicidal thoughts or cases of self-harm in those treated. After around 150 reports of such observations, a verdict is still pending. In any case, hype about such drugs should be avoided.
Source: Nachrichten
