Weight loss drug Saxenda could help overweight children aged 6 and over

The weight-loss drug liraglutide (Saxenda) helped obese children lower their BMI and reach a healthier weight, researchers report. Photo by Adobe Stock/HealthDay News

Researchers report that the weight loss drug liraglutide helped overweight children lower their BMI and achieve a healthier weight.

The results, published on Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in Madrid, demonstrate for the first time the effect of liraglutide (Saxenda) on children aged 6 to 11 years.

“The results of this study are very promising for children living with obesity,” said study author Dr. Claudia Fox, co-director of the Center for Pediatric Obesity Medicine at the University of Minnesota, in a press release. “Until now, there have been virtually no options for treating obesity for children. They have been told to 'try harder' with diet and exercise. Now that there is a drug that addresses the underlying physiology of obesity, there is hope that children living with obesity can live healthier, more productive lives.”

Most adults and children ages 12 and older can take newer weight-loss medications, such as the GLP-1 drugs Wegovy and Zepbound, experts say, but younger children rely solely on diet, exercise and counseling to lose weight.

“Obesity is the most common chronic disease in childhood,” noted Fox. “Untreated, childhood obesity almost always persists into adulthood and is associated with significant health problems, including diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and in some people, premature death. Early intervention is therefore critical.”

“However, effective treatment options are limited to date,” she added. “The backbone of obesity treatment is lifestyle therapy – changes in diet and physical activity – but when used alone, the effect is modest and so far no drug is approved to treat general obesity in children under 12 years of age.”

Liraglutide was first approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2014 to support weight loss in adults. In 2020, that approval was expanded to include people ages 12 to 17.

In the latest study, researchers looked at the drug's effects on children between the ages of 6 and 11 who had what is considered a high BMI. The average 10-year-old in the study weighed about 70 kilograms.

Fifty-six of the 82 children received a daily injection of liraglutide, and the rest received a placebo. All children also received counseling to encourage them to eat a healthier diet and to engage in at least one hour of moderate to vigorous physical activity daily.

What happened? In just over a year, the BMI of children who received liraglutide fell by 7.4 percentage points more than that of children in the placebo group. The BMI of children in the liraglutide group fell by 5.8%, while it increased by 1.6% in children in the placebo group.

“Although there is no consensus on the definition of a clinically meaningful BMI reduction in children, a 5 percent reduction has already been shown to be associated with improvements in some obesity-related health conditions,” Fox noted.

Liraglutide was deemed safe for the young children in the study funded by drugmaker Novo Nordisk, but children in both groups experienced some side effects.

Stomach problems such as nausea, diarrhea and vomiting were more common in the liraglutide group, but Fox said very few children dropped out of the study because of the side effects. The stomach problems improved over time, she added.

However, as with other weight loss medications, the children's BMI increased again when they stopped taking the medication.

Weight loss experts said the results suggest doctors should try liraglutide on their youngest patients.

“Although these drugs are currently expensive, there is potential for longer-term health benefits in treating overweight children and adolescents. Nevertheless, their value in reducing the risk of obesity-related diseases and improving health in the long term needs to be considered,” Dr Nerys Astbury, Associate Professor of Nutrition and Obesity in the Nuffield Department of Primary Health Care Sciences at the University of Oxford in England, told the Science Media Centre.

However, another expert pointed out an important caveat.

“Developing anti-obesity drugs for children is complicated by the fact that children are in an active growth phase and therefore may be at higher risk, particularly in terms of appetite suppression, as such drugs have the potential to inhibit growth,” Simon Cork, a lecturer in physiology at Anglia Ruskin University in England, told the media center.

“However, we know that people who suffer from obesity as a child are much more likely to be obese in adulthood and to experience the negative health consequences that come with that,” Cork added. “So the evidence that liraglutide is both safe and effective in children is positive. However, further studies over longer periods of time are needed to ensure that appetite suppression in these children does not have unforeseen negative consequences later in their development.”

More information

The CDC has more information on childhood obesity.