TOPLINE:

Among adults with type 2 diabetes (T2D) and obesity who initiated incretin therapy, those receiving standard diabetes care — with or without referral to a weight management clinic — experience significant improvements in weight, glycemic control, and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels.

METHODOLOGY:

• Incretin treatments provide substantial metabolic benefits, but it remains unclear whether referral to a weight management clinic offers added advantages beyond medication use in routine T2D care.
• Researchers conducted a retrospective cohort study within an academic health system from 2018 to 2023 to evaluate whether referral to a weight management clinic, in addition to standard diabetes care, conferred added benefits for adults with T2D and obesity initiating incretin therapy.
• Patients with at least two standard diabetes clinic visits and at least one incretin prescription were categorized as either the diabetes care plus weight management group if they attended the weight management clinic at least once or as the standard diabetes care-only group if they did not.
• Primary outcomes included changes from baseline to last follow-up in A1c percentage, body weight (kg), and LDL cholesterol (mg/dL).

TAKEAWAY:

• Researchers included 1145 patients, with 282 (mean age, 47.9 years; 69.2% female) receiving diabetes care plus weight management and 1163 (mean age, 53.4 years; 58.9% female) receiving standard diabetes care alone.
• Both groups demonstrated significant within-group improvements from baseline over the study duration: A1c decreased by 0.38% and 0.37%, body weight by 4.6 and 5.8 kg, and LDL cholesterol by 12.2 and 11.6 mg/dL in the standard care-only and standard care plus weight management groups, respectively (all within-group P < .05). Between-group differences were not significant.
• Patients with a single weight management clinic visit lost 4.1 kg less weight than those receiving standard diabetes care alone (P = .006), whereas patients with four or more visits lost 4.4 kg more weight (P = .0003).

IN PRACTICE:

“These findings indicate that most patients can achieve early pharmacologic benefit in standard care and WM [weight management] clinics, but that long-term WM outcomes are enhanced with regular WM clinic attendance,” the authors of the study wrote.

SOURCE:

The study was led by Kathleen M. Robinson, University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics Department of Internal Medicine, Iowa City, Iowa. It was published online in Obesity Science and Practice.

LIMITATIONS:

The single-center, retrospective design and variable follow-up intervals may limit generalizability. Weight management interventions were not standardized and likely differed across patients. Behavioral factors, adherence, and patient-reported outcomes were unavailable, and treatment duration, dose escalation, and long-term weight-loss maintenance were outside the scope of the analysis.

DISCLOSURES:

The study received support from the University of Iowa, Division of Endocrinology Diabetes and Metabolism, as well as funding from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of Health. The authors reported having no conflicts of interest.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.