Research

Hormonal

Semaglutide treatment is associated with a higher risk of total adverse events and premature treatment discontinuation compared to sitagliptin, although the risk of serious adverse events is not significantly different.

Be prepared for a higher likelihood of side effects and stopping the medication early when starting semaglutide compared to sitagliptin. Most side effects are gastrointestinal. Slow dose escalation can help. However, serious adverse events are not significantly more common with semaglutide.

GoodQualifiesHIGH confidence
Regarding secondary outcomes, there was an elevated risk of total adverse events and premature treatment discontinuation with semaglutide. the risk of serious, severe, moderate, and mild adverse events did not significantly differ between the two treatments.
Tirath Patel et al. · Annals of Medicine · 2023

Why this rating

Meta-analysis of 3 RCTs.

Source

Comparative efficacy and safety profile of once-weekly Semaglutide versus once-daily Sitagliptin as an add-on to metformin in patients with type 2 diabetes: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Tirath Patel et al. · Annals of Medicine · 2023

DOI 10.1080/07853890.2023.2239830

Meta-analysis · 3 studiesCited 12×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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