Once-weekly semaglutide 7·[amount hidden] in adults with obesity (STEP UP): a randomised, controlled, phase 3b trial

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Semaglutide, published as a randomized controlled trial.

For the German and Greek translations of the abstract see Supplementary Materials section.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 11 adults were involved.

PubMed indexes the participants as adults and middle-aged adults, both men and women.

STEP UP was a phase 3b, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled and active-controlled trial conducted across 95 hospitals, specialist clinics, and medical centres in 11 countries in adults with BMI 30 kg/m2 or greater, without diabetes.

How the Study Was Run

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

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

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

Some adults received a placebo instead of Semaglutide, giving a reference point.

This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT05646706) and is now completed.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Anti-Obesity Agents, Glucagon-Like Peptides, Obesity, Weight Loss, Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Receptor Agonists, Glucagon-Like Peptide 1 and Semaglutide.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Semaglutide in 11 adults.

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.

Results are reported in around 7 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2025 (The lancet. Diabetes & endocrinology), a journal based in England.

More context: the Semaglutide compound page, all human trials.