Research

Hormonal

Semaglutide subcutaneous (SQ) at 2.4 mg produces the greatest weight loss among GLP-1 analogs, significantly outperforming other agents including lower-dose semaglutide and liraglutide.

If you are seeking the most effective pharmacological weight loss treatment available in this class, semaglutide administered subcutaneously at 2.4 mg is the superior choice. It produces significantly greater weight loss than other GLP-1 analogs like liraglutide or lower-dose semaglutide. Be aware that this higher efficacy comes with a higher risk of gastrointestinal side effects, though it is not the highest risk among all GLP-1 agents.

WeakSupportsHIGH confidence
Network meta-analysis showed that semaglutide SQ 2.4mg was associated with excess weight loss compared to all other active agents... SUCRA-based treatment ranking suggested that semaglutide SQ 2.4mg (SUCRA, 100) was most likely to result in the highest excess weight loss, followed by semaglutide <2.4mg (SUCRA, 86.1), liraglutide >1.8mg (SUCRA, 82.8)
Kia Vosoughi et al. · EClinicalMedicine · 2021

Why this rating

Based on 64 RCTs and 27,018 patients using network meta-analysis with high certainty of evidence for head-to-head comparisons.

Source

Association of glucagon-like peptide 1 analogs and agonists administered for obesity with weight loss and adverse events: a systematic review and network meta-analysis

Kia Vosoughi et al. · EClinicalMedicine · 2021

DOI 10.1016/j.eclinm.2021.101213

Meta-analysis · 64 studiesCited 92×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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