(CNN) — A three-year study of tirzepatide – a medication approved in the US as Zepbound for diabetes and Mounjaro for weight loss – found that when adults who had prediabetes and obesity or overweight used it weekly, it lowered their risk of progression to diabetes by 94% compared with a placebo, according to drugmaker Eli Lilly & Company.
“We really almost never see those kinds of powerful effects," explained the company's Chief Scientific Officer Daniel Skovronsky who's also the president of Lilly Research Laboratories.
"It just shows how important this medicine is for treatment of obesity and how closely linked obesity is to type two diabetes.”
The company said Tuesday that people who got a 15-milligram (mg) dose of the medicine also had an average decrease in body weight of nearly 23%, compared with 2.1% in those who got a placebo.
During a 17-week off-treatment follow-up period, people who had stopped using tirzepatide began to regain weight, Lilly said in a news release, and there was “some increase in the progression to type 2 diabetes.”
“The most frequently reported adverse events were typically gastrointestinal-related and generally mild to moderate in severity,” Lilly said. “The most common gastrointestinal-related adverse events for patients treated with tirzepatide were diarrhea, nausea, constipation, and vomiting.”
Prediabetes is a condition in which blood sugar, or glucose, levels are higher than normal but don’t reach the criteria for a diagnosis of diabetes. It affects about 1 in 3 adults in the US – 84 million people – and about 70% will go on to be diagnosed with diabetes. Lifestyle changes – especially weight loss – have generally been considered the most important management tool.
Shadeh Parks lives in Indianapolis and was diagnosed with type two diabetes at just 33-years-old.
"When I first diagnosed I was taking for shots [of insulin] a day," she told WRTV. "So my life totally changed, from not taking pills and needles and none of that to having to take it every day.”
She believes having a drug to prevent those from going through what she does could make a huge difference.
"I think that would be a game changer and save a lot of lives," Parks said.
Tirzepatide works by mimicking hormones that stimulate the release of insulin, increase feelings of fullness and reduce appetite. It targets two hormone receptors, GIP and GLP-1. It’s part of a new class of drugs that includes semaglutide, known as Ozempic for diabetes and Wegovy for weight loss, which have skyrocketed in popularity in recent years.
In earlier trials of Zepbound, the medication was found to yield more average weight loss than other approved medicines, and in November, the US Food and Drug Administration approved it as Mounjaro for people with obesity or those characterized as overweight with at least one weight-related health condition, such as high blood pressure or heart disease. Like similar drugs, it’s used as a shot patients give themselves once a week and is recommended on top of a reduced-calorie diet and increased exercise.
Rochelle Hooks is a pre-diabetic Hoosier who's been taking Zepbound since May.
She told WRTV she's struggled with her weight for years, but since taking the medicine and changing her life-style she lost 15 pounds and feels a lot healthier.
"It just shows how important this medicine is for treatment of obesity and how closely linked obesity is to type two diabetes," added Skovronsky.
The results of the new trial “will be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal and presented at ObesityWeek 2024” in November, Lilly says.
CNN’s Meg Tirrell contributed to this report.
