Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Head-to-Head Study Compares GLP-1 Weight Loss

In a pharmaceutical head-to-head, tirzepatide was found to provide 47% greater relative weight loss compared to semaglutide. On average, patients using tirzepatide lost 50.3 lbs (22.8 kg), and those using semaglutide lost 33.1 lbs (15.0 kg) after 72 weeks. In addition, for the study’s secondary endpoint, 31.6% of people taking tirzepatide achieved at least 25% body weight loss compared to 16.1% of those taking semaglutide. The randomized, open-label trial included 751 participants across the United …

Liraglutide May Help Kids Under 12 Lose Weight

Liraglutide, the long-acting glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) drug, was approved for weight loss in among pediatric patients aged 12 and older who are obese. Recently, manufacturer Novo Nordisk found in a sponsored study that children between the ages of 6 and 12—a younger population—were able to reduce their body mass index by 7.4% in a 56-week trial using daily liraglutide injections, as published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The trial of 92 children met …

Study Finds New Semaglutide Benefits, No Link to Suicidal Thoughts

A study published in the Lancet last week investigated millions of U.S. medical records to determine whether semaglutide increased the risk of neurological and psychiatric conditions within the first year of use compared to 3 other common antidiabetic medications. Authors found no association between semaglutide and a higher risk of the 22 studied conditions (eg, psychosis; bipolar disorder; depression; anxiety; opioid and alcohol use disorder; etc.). In fact, patients on semaglutide showed lower rates of …

Studies Find No Increased Risk of Suicide With Semaglutide

The glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist semaglutide (Wegovy, Ozempic) was found to demonstrate no increased risk of suicidal ideation in patients with obesity or type 2 diabetes, according to retrospective analyses of electronic health records examining these patient populations, published in Nature Medicine. Researchers’ analysis of 240,618 patients who were overweight/obese showed that those taking semaglutide had a significantly lower risk (0.11%) of suicidal ideation compared with those using non-GLP-1 anti-obesity medications (0.43%). In …

Patients More Likely to Stick With Semaglutide Treatment

Patients taking the GLP-1 weight loss drug semaglutide were 3 times more likely to maintain adherence to their medication regimens a year later when compared to other drug options, according to a Cleveland Clinic study. As described in Obesity, researchers examined health records of 1,911 adults in two states and found 40% of semaglutide patients were still filling their prescriptions 12 months after the initiation of treatment. Patients using other anti-obesity drugs, such as orlistat, liraglutide, …

Urgent Care Services Rendered

UCA’S SURVEY COMMITTEE drew two important conclusions from its first industry-wide survey: urgent care is a growing industry nationwide, and those within the industry are hungry for benchmarking data. In each issue of JUCM, Developing Data will seek to fulfill that need. In this issue, a look at the breadth of services offered by respondents to the survey: