Research

Hormonal

Once-weekly subcutaneous semaglutide 2.4 mg produces clinically significant, sustained weight loss (mean -10.2% at 208 weeks) in adults with preexisting cardiovascular disease and obesity/overweight without diabetes, compared to placebo.

If you have heart disease and are overweight or obese (even without diabetes), once-weekly semaglutide 2.4 mg can help you lose about 10% of your body weight over 4 years, which is significantly more than placebo. This benefit is seen across different sexes, races, and BMI categories, though those with lower starting BMI might stop the medication more often due to side effects or lack of motivation. The key is that it works sustainably for cardiovascular health.

WeakSupportsVERY_HIGH confidence
In SELECT, at 208 weeks, semaglutide produced clinically significant weight loss and improvements in anthropometric measurements versus placebo. Weight loss was sustained over 4 years.
Donna H. Ryan et al. · Nature Medicine · 2024

Why this rating

Large-scale, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial (SELECT) with 17,604 participants and long-term follow-up (4 years).

Source

Long-term weight loss effects of semaglutide in obesity without diabetes in the SELECT trial

Donna H. Ryan et al. · Nature Medicine · 2024

DOI 10.1038/s41591-024-02996-7

rct · n=17604Cited 275×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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