Type 2 diabetes, sometimes referred to as late onset diabetes, is a lifelong condition where the body either doesn’t produce enough insulin to function properly or the body’s cells don’t react properly to the insulin. This causes the blood sugar level in the body to become too high. The condition usually affects people over the age of 40 but is becoming increasingly common in younger people, something the medical profession is attributing to weight.
One of the first things a doctor will advise a patient diagnosed with type 2 diabetes is to try to lose weight – even losing around 5% of your weight can improve the management of blood sugar levels, known as glycaemic control. However, many diabetics find it difficult to shift weight with diet and exercise alone and so there has been a move towards prescribing drugs that can help them achieve the desired weight loss.
Now new research has revealed that a diet pill has helped type 2 diabetes patients lose weight successfully. Reporting in the journal Obesity, the researchers say lorcaserin, a drug that targets the appetite signals in the brain, is not only safe for use in patients with type 2 diabetes but is actually highly effective in helping them achieve a significant weight loss.
The researchers, drawn from various academic institutions and members of the Obesity Society, embarked on a study entitled BLOOM-DM (Behavioural Modification and Lorcaserin for Obesity and Overweight Management in Diabetes Mellitus) involving more than 600 obese and overweight participants over the course of a year. The participants were divided into three groups, one of which received lorcaserin twice a day.
Those participants who took lorcaserin while also taking part in a weight loss program lost an average 5.5% of their body weight while also seeing improved glycaemic control.
The next step for any research would involve testing lorcaserin on the wider diabetic population to see if the same weight loss can be achieved.
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