Semaglutide helps shed tongue fat in women with obesity

Use of the glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1 RA) semaglutide in women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and obesity works to reduce fat accumulation in the tongue, a study has shown.

The study randomized 25 women with PCOS (mean age 33.7 years, body mass index [BMI] 36.1 kg/m²) to treatment with semaglutide 1.0 mg or placebo for 16 weeks. Researchers measured tongue volume, along with its fat tissue and fat proportion, using magnetic resonance imaging.

Week-16 results were significantly better with semaglutide than with placebo. Tongue fat tissue significantly decreased with the GLP-1 RA but increased with placebo (mean –1.94 vs 3.12 cm³; p=0.022).

Likewise, semaglutide yielded a reduction in fat proportion of 0.02 as opposed to an increase of 0.04 with placebo (p=0.010).

On correlation analysis, the resulting reduction in tongue fat achieved with semaglutide were all associated with decreases in body weight, BMI, and waist circumference (p=0.010 for all).

The present data confirm the beneficial effect of the GLP-1 RA on tongue structure in obese women with PCOS. One potential benefit of reduced fat accumulation in the tongue, according to the researchers, is it can help ease sleep apnoea, since “lingual obesogenic sarcopaenia accounts for greater collapsibility of the tongue during sleep and frequently leads to obesity-related sleep apnoea.”

Nevertheless, more studies are required to establish the clinical importance of the study findings, they added.