Semaglutide Sustains Reduced Calorie Intake Beyond One Year
Even when people start feeling hungry again, semaglutide helps them eat fewer calories for over a year. A study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that returning hunger doesn’t mean the medication has stopped working which should bring relief to many patients.
The 60-week study looked at 120 adults who were overweight or obese. ane group received weekly semaglutide injections, while the other received a dummy shot (placebo). Everyone was given guidance on healthy eating and exercise.
To measure how much participants actually ate, researchers brought them into a lab for five-hour testing sessions. After eating a set breakfast, everyone was offered lunch and told to eat until they felt comfortably full. The results? People taking semaglutide consistently ate 24% to 30% fewer calories than those on the placebo even when they said they were starting to feel hungrier again.
By the end of the study, people taking semaglutide lost an average of 15% of their body weight, compared to just 3% in the placebo group. Interestingly, around week 40, participants on semaglutide reported feeling about as hungry as those on the placebo. Yet, they still ate significantly less food.
Dr. Jena Tronieri, the lead author, pointed out that how hungry you feel and how much you actually eat aren’t always the same thing. Senior researcher Dr. Thomas Wadden added that patients often worry when their appetite starts coming back, assuming the drug is failing. However, the medicine continues to limit calorie intake regardless of how hungry someone feels.
Semaglutide is a prescription medication approved for long-term weight management and type 2 diabetes. Doctors and medical guidelines recommend staying on it long-term because it helps protect heart and metabolic health.
These findings give doctors a great tool to reassure patients: feeling hungrier later in treatment is normal, and it doesn’t mean the drug has stopped working. Knowing this can prevent people from quitting early, which is crucial since stopping the medication usually causes the weight to come right back.
