Cosmos
Cosmos is a quarterly science magazine. We aim to inspire curiosity in ‘The Science of Everything’ and make the world of science accessible to everyone.
By Cosmos
Everyone knows that they should stop smoking. Despite this, some people – particularly women – really struggle to quit.
A study from Switzerland has looked at the problem of weight gain after quitting, trying the diabetes drug dulaglutide (Trulicity) to see if it helps.
Dulaglutide is a GLP-1 antagonist, similar to daibetes turned weight loss drug Ozempic.
A small group of 255 adults were given weekly dulaglutide or a placebo as well as a smoking cessation drug and behavioural counselling over 12 weeks.
They found that those given dulaglutide had lower rates of weight gain – on average losing 1.2 kilos for women compared to 1.9 kg gained for those taking the placebo. For men there was a decrease of 0.6 kg compared to a gain of 1.9 kg.
These are small numbers, and the costs of a small weight gain will be outweighed by the benefits of quitting smoking. However, the worry of weight gain might be preventing people from trying to quit.
Specifically, 24% of women in the placebo group experienced ‘substantial weight gain’ (in this study that’s defined as a 6% increase), while only 5% of the males did.
The dulaglutide did stop this, with only 1% having substantial weight gain in the treatment group. Unfortunately the team found that weight gain did not change the rates of quitting with either the men or women in the study.
“Although unequivocal evidence-based data are lacking, the prevailing opinion in the broader literature is that weight gain is a key factor limiting abstinence in women,” the researchers write in their paper.
“Our findings do not support this notion—at least not with regard to short-term abstinence—and rather suggest that (gender-specific) reasons for successful quitting are multilayered and more complex.”
The researchers also only looked at the patients for 12 weeks. Studies have shown that drugs that use GLP-1 antagonists need to be continued to continue the weight loss. It’s unknown if when the patients stopped the treatment, they would have regained the weight.
The research has been published in BMJ Nutrition Prevention & Health.