Research

Energy balance

Orlistat (360 mg/day) produces significantly greater total body weight loss and fat mass reduction than metformin (1000 mg/day) in obese premenopausal women over 3 months.

If you are an obese premenopausal woman looking to lose weight, orlistat (360mg/day) combined with a balanced diet is likely to produce significantly greater weight loss than metformin (1000mg/day) over a 3-month period. Be prepared for potential gastrointestinal side effects, which are usually mild.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Those treated with orlistat showed greater weight loss (–9.4 ±2.3 vs. –4.9 ±1.3 kg, p < 0.05) and decrease of fat mass (–5.4 ±3.0 vs. –3.5 ±0.7 kg, p < 0.05) than those treated with metformin.
Magdalena Kujawska-Łuczak et al. · Archives of Medical Science · 2016

Why this rating

Randomized controlled trial, but open-label and relatively short duration (3 months).

Source

The effect of orlistat versus metformin on body composition and insulin resistance in obese premenopausal women: 3-month randomized prospective open-label study

Magdalena Kujawska-Łuczak et al. · Archives of Medical Science · 2016

DOI 10.5114/aoms.2016.62014

rct · n=73Cited 20×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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