Obesity’s become a global pandemic, currently affecting one third of the entire population, and this is why we can look at it as a chronic disease that requires appropriate treatment. 

When talking about obesity, amylin hormone is of great importance as it gets secreted along with insulin and acts as food intake inhibitor, delaying gastric emptying and suppresses post-prandial glucagon responses to meals.

For this reason, there is a tendency to include amylin management in newly developed medication. 

And one such compound is cagrilintide – lipidated long-acting amylin analogue. 

Though it still hadn’t been thoroughly tested on humans, numerous rat studies showed incredible potential. One such in vitro study involving rats set out to compare cagrilintide’s effectiveness against pramlintide (an FDA-approved diabetes 1/2 medication).

The study showed that pramlintide reduced food intake by 25% in the period of 0-24 hours (it did not cause reduced food intake after 24 hours). But the dosage was substantial – 1000 nmol/kg. 

On the other hand, cagrilintide was able to reduce food intake by approximately 50% with a minimal dosage of only 3 nmol/kg. More importantly, this food intake reduction spanned across 60 hours from the moment it was injected.

These results clearly show the potency of cagrilintide in weight loss and diabetes management medication, especially because it acts over such a long time period (allowing subcutaneous injections to be applied once a week). 

Reference:

Dehestani B, Stratford NR, le Roux CW. Amylin as a Future Obesity Treatment. J Obes Metab Syndr. 2021 Dec 30;30(4):320-325. doi: 10.7570/jomes21071. PMID: 34929674; PMCID: PMC8735818.