USING LOW DOSE LIRAGLUTIDE AS AN EFFECTIVE TREATMENT FOR OBESITY IN NON DIABETIC PATIENTS: A CASE SERIES

Introduction and objective: Obesity, a major risk factor of early onset cardiovascular disease, has become one of the greatest public health challenges of the twenty-first century. Thus, there seems to be an urgent necessity for the improvement of what is now an epidemic disease. Diet and healthy lifestyle are usually the first line of approach/treatment. However, when these strategies fail to achieve a sustained weight loss, pharmacological treatment is recommended. Analogs of GLP 1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) have emerged recently as an additional tool in the treatment of obesity, which, so far, seems to be promising. The objective of this work is to present the clinical cases of a family health unit, where the use of an analog of GLP-1 (liraglutide) led to weight reduction in obese patients without diabetes. Method: Treatment was opportunistically initiated in patients that were already being treated for obesity (pharmacological and non-pharmacologically).In this case, patients had a BMI greater than 30 kg/m2 and were non-diabetic. The mean dose of liraglutide used was 1,2mg. Results and Conclusions: Until now, there are eight patients being prescribed an analogue of GLP-1. At the beginning of the treatment, the mean BMI was 37.1kg/m2. After 3 months, there was an mean weight loss of 8.6kg and 15 Kg in a 6 month time span. About 2/3 of the patients had previously started drug therapy for obesity treatment with fluoxetine and / or topiramate (without significant improvement). The significant weight loss observed in these eight cases is according to the latest publications.