When a drug like semaglutide turns on certain brain and body signals, it helps people feel fuller, eat less, and lose about 15% of their body weight on average.

Semaglutide helps people who are overweight or obese lose weight by making them feel less hungry and slowing down how fast food leaves their stomach.

If someone has had weight-loss surgery but isn’t losing enough weight—or gains it back—taking semaglutide seems to help them lose more weight than if they took liraglutide, and they’re over twice as likely to lose 10% or more of their body weight.

In adults with overweight or obesity who do not have diabetes, the drug semaglutide lowers levels of C-reactive protein, a marker of inflammation, more than other similar drugs tested in the same study.

Medicines like liraglutide, semaglutide, and tirzepatide can help people with extra weight lose pounds and improve their blood sugar, liver health, cholesterol, and blood pressure.

Semaglutide might be better than other similar weight-loss drugs at protecting heart health in people who are overweight or obese but don’t have diabetes.