How much weight do people lose on Semaglutide? The STEP1 Trial
GLP1 Receptor Agonists help with weight loss, but they're not miracle drugs.
Not everyone loses significant amounts of weight, but the best thing about GLP1 is that there are lots of medical trials and studies which have shown how much weight control can improve with the appropriate use of GLP1 Agonists like Ozempic, Wegovy, Rybelsus and others.
Most often cited: The STEP 1 Trial (Semaglutide)
The STEP 1 Trial is one of the most cited studies which examined how much weight people lost while using Semaglutide.
Remember, Semaglutide is active in the following commonly discussed GLP1 agonists:
You can find a few places on the internet with great write-ups of the STEP1 trial:
Going straight to the The results of the STEP1 trial are summed up in the Research Summary below:
The STEP1 was a double-blind trial with 1961 participants. The key take aways:
- By the end of the trial, Semaglutide group lost 14.9% on versus 2.4% on placebo
- More participants in the Semaglutide group had weight loss of >= 5% (86% of people on Semaglutide lost at least 5% of their body weight)
Obviously, Semaglutide did not work for everyone necessarily, but it worked for an encouraging number of people – 5% of body weight can be very hard to maintain with willpower alone.
The paper goes into it quite clearly:
Participants who received semaglutide were more likely to lose 5% or more, 10% or more, 15% or more, and 20% or more of baseline body weight at week 68 than those who received placebo (P<0.001 for the 5%, 10%, and 15% thresholds;
More traditional signs of fitness (like waist circumference) also improved:
Semaglutide was associated with greater reductions from baseline than placebo in waist circumference (–13.54 cm with semaglutide vs. –4.13 cm with placebo; estimated treatment difference, –9.42 cm; 95% CI, –10.30 to –8.53), BMI (–5.54 with semaglutide vs. –0.92 with placebo; estimated treatment difference, –4.61; 95% CI, –4.96 to –4.27), and systolic and diastolic blood pressure at week 68 (Table 2, Table S2, and Figs. S5 and S6).
The results of the STEP1 trial are one of the most cited and relied upon results in the field, causing a huge rise in interest in GLP1 Receptor Agonist drugs (and Ozempic for example, in particular).
