Leaping Lizards: A Diabetes Drug That Causes Weight Loss
The Gila monster is a squat, ugly-looking lizard of the southwestern United States and Mexico known for its deadly venom. But for some Type 2 diabetics, the Gila monster’s poison just got a little sweeter.
It turns out that Byetta, a drug whose active ingredient is the synthetic version of a protein produced in the spit of the Gila monster, has been found to cause considerable weight loss in some of its users.
Eli Lilly and Amylin, who jointly market Byetta, sponsored research in which 200 patients taking the drug were followed for three years. The results of the study were presented this week at the American Diabetes Association’s annual conference in Chicago.
The patients lost an average of 11 pounds, with the most pounds shed in the first year. Considering that the average BMI of patients in the study was 33.5, the weight loss was described as “modest” by lead researcher John Buse, chief of endocrinology at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill’s School of Medicine.
Still, the findings are promising for sufferers of Type 2 diabetes; obesity is a major contributor to the disease, and some diabetes treatments can cause weight gain. “None of [the other diabetes drugs] are associated with weight loss” notes Buse.
Byetta is a self-injected synthetic hormone that was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2005. It was developed after John Eng, an endocrinologist at New York City’s Bronx VA Medical Center, convinced Amilyn and Eli Lilly of the potentially therapeutic benefits of a protein he had discovered in the Gila monster’s saliva.
In addition to boosting insulin production in patients, Byetta curbs the rate at which the stomach empties itself and may interact with the region of the brain responsible for the sensation of fullness.
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