MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Ken Fujioka M.D. Director of the Center for Weight Management Scripps Clinical Department of Endocrinology La Jolla CA MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Obesity is an odd disease that has many causes (overeating, underactivity, the patient being placed on a medication that drives up weight and a whole lot of other causes that result in a higher weight) so trying to find the right treatment, in this case a weight loss medication, for a particular patient is not an easy task. If there is a way to find out if you’ve picked the right medication (a weight loss of at least 5%) then this can help you decide whether you should keep the patient on the medication or stop the medication. There are two huge benefits to this: 1. Is that you find your responders (patients) that will go on to lose weight and do well and 2. When you stop the medication in the non-responders you eliminate any potential adverse events from the weight loss medication. Thus this study was designed to find out if early weight loss can predict who will go on to lose a significant amount of weight on Liraglutide. And yes those who lose weight go on to lose weight. (more…)