By Ella Pickover

Copyright dailyrecord

Brits might want to shift a bit of weight for many reasons. Your wedding or big birthday might be around the corner, and some may turn to weight loss drugs instead of the usual diet and exercise to help shed some pounds. There are around 1.5 million people on weight loss drugs in the UK. Mounjaro, for instance, is used to help treat type 2 diabetes but is recommended to help dangerously obese people lose weight on the NHS . And now, a once-a-day tablet for obesity could expand the use of weight-loss drugs to many people who have struggled to access them before, after a new study found the pill can lead to “significant” reductions in body weight. The Record previously reported that orforglipron , the new weight loss pill from Eli Lilly, the same manufacturer of Mounjaro, could be expected to be available in the UK as early as next year. Almost one in five people taking Orforglipron can expect to lose 20 per cent of their body weight after taking the drug for a year and a half, a new study has since revealed. “This could expand obesity interventions to groups who are currently excluded due to the cost of and lack of access to injectable medications,” Dr Sean Wharton from McMaster University in Canada, who led the research, said. “Where I think we’re going to see a difference in this medication, is the ability to have access to care around the entire world for those who previously did not have access to care.” He added: “I see this changing the way that we treat people living with obesity… what we don’t have is access to care for people who desperately need it.” The new pill is a GLP-1 agonist , a type of medication which helps lower blood sugar levels , slows the digestion of food and can reduce appetite. The weight loss seen among people taking the tablet is not as stark as those among patients taking Mounjaro. The full paper detailing the findings has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, and presented to the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes, in Vienna, Austria. The study assessed 3,127 patients, who were split into groups taking different strength pills of orforglipron, while others took a placebo, also known as a dummy drug, for 72 weeks. All of the patients had obesity, meaning they had a body mass index (BMI) score of 30 or over, but they did not have diabetes. Patients from the US , China, Brazil, India, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Slovakia and Taiwan took part. Researchers found that after 72 weeks people taking the lowest dose of orforglipron, 6mg daily tablets, lost an average of 7.5 per cent of their body weight. Those taking the highest dose, 36mg, lost an average of 11.2 per cent of their body weight. Among patients taking the highest doses, 54.6 per cent had a reduction of 10 per cent or more of body weight, 36.0 per cent had a reduction of 15 per cent or more, and 18.4 per cent had a reduction of 20 per cent or more. People taking the drug also noted better blood pressure, a smaller waist circumference and a reduction in bad cholesterol levels . Some 36 per cent of “prediabetic” patients also managed to reserve this through the study period. Wondering if there were any side effects? The main ones were gastrointestinal which were “mild to moderate”. The authors said this was largely no different to other weight loss jabs.