Longer-term liraglutide administration at the highest dose approved for obesity increases reward-related orbitofrontal cortex activation in response to food cues: Implications for plateauing weight loss in response to anti-obesity therapies

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Liraglutide in the context of fat loss, obesity & body recomposition in this randomized controlled trial publication.

Who Took Part

The study group was 20 participants.

The age groups tagged for this paper are middle-aged adults, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled and crossover study.

Because people in this Liraglutide study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Neither the participants nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Liraglutide, so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

Some participants received a placebo instead of Liraglutide, giving a reference point.

Each person switched between Liraglutide and the comparison at some point, usually with a gap in between.

Neurocognitive and neuroimaging (fMRI) responses to food cues were examined at the clinical research center of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Anti-Obesity Agents, Blood Glucose, Cognition, Cues, Liraglutide, Obesity and Prefrontal Cortex.

Author keywords: GLP-1, MRI and neuroimaging.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Liraglutide in 20 participants in people with fat loss, obesity & body recomposition.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

Its findings take up roughly 6 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2019 (Diabetes, obesity & metabolism), a journal based in England.

More context: the Liraglutide compound page, Fat loss, obesity & body recomposition research.