GLP-1 for 6 Year Olds? Here’s What the Trial Actually Found

Is obesity still a disease worthy of treatment when the patient is six years old?

This week, Novo Nordisk released Phase 3 STEP Young data in children ages 6 to 11 with obesity. After 68 weeks, 40.4% of children treated with semaglutide moved below the obesity threshold, compared with 0% on placebo. More than 85% of the children entered the trial with class II or class III severe obesity, and both groups received lifestyle intervention.

That raises a harder question than whether people are comfortable with kids taking GLP-1s: compared with what? A nearly 90% chance that obesity present at age 3 persists into the teen years? An approximately 80% chance that a teen with obesity carries it into adulthood? Another decade of stigma, bullying, and metabolic disease while we keep telling families to try harder?

I’m unapologetically supportive of studying and treating severe childhood obesity. That does not mean ignoring long-term questions around growth, puberty, nutrition, lean mass, or what happens when treatment stops. It means recognizing that withholding treatment is also a decision with consequences.

We also break down the new Structure Therapeutics data, including aleniglipron, an oral small-molecule GLP-1 that produced up to 16.2% mean weight loss at 72 weeks, and ACCG-2671, an experimental oral amylin/calcitonin agonist that produced 3.3% mean weight loss after a single dose, with some important tolerability caveats.

Plus, we look at a preliminary semaglutide signal involving asthma and COPD, and one of the strangest Ozempic access stories of the week.

Recorded from the Bask Health Studios.

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