Research

Hormonal

Short-term administration of the MC4R agonist RM-493 significantly increases resting energy expenditure (REE) and shifts substrate oxidation toward fat in obese individuals.

For obese individuals, activating the MC4R pathway with the drug RM-493 increases the calories your body burns at rest by about 111 kcal per day and shifts your metabolism to burn more fat. This happens without raising blood pressure or heart rate in the short term, though mild side effects like nausea or sexual side effects can occur.

ModerateSupportsMEDIUM confidence
Short-term administration of the MC4R agonist, RM-493 increases REE and shifts substrate oxidation to fat in obese individuals.
Kong Y. Chen et al. · The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism · 2015

Why this rating

Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover design, but with a small sample size (n=12) and short duration (72 hours).

Source

RM-493, a Melanocortin-4 Receptor (MC4R) Agonist, Increases Resting Energy Expenditure in Obese Individuals

Kong Y. Chen et al. · The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism · 2015

DOI 10.1210/jc.2014-4024

crossover · n=12Cited 174×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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