Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Liraglutide is a long-acting glucagon-like peptide-1(GLP-1) receptor agonist that promotes weight loss. The minimum adequate/good response to liraglutide (≥5% weight loss at 3 months) is not achievable in all patients. Currently there are no biomarkers to predict good response. Enhanced postprandial glicentin concentration was recently considered as superior to GLP-1 in predicting weight loss following bariatric surgeries.

Objective 1) To assess the effect of liraglutide on fasting glicentin concentration in patients with overweight/obesity 2) To evaluate the difference in baseline fasting glicentin concentrations between good and poor responders to liraglutide (≥5% vs. <5% weight loss from baseline).

Methods: Validation of glicentin ELISA kit (Mercodia, Sweden) was performed and fasting glicentin concentrations from 34 patients collected at baseline (pre-treatment), 2, 4 and 6 months post treatment were analysed. Statistical analysis was done using Analyse-It v5.40.2. T-test was used to examine the difference between baseline and post-treatment glicentin concentrations. ANOVA-test was used to examine the difference in baseline glicentin between good and poor responders. Level of significance is 5%.

Results: Glicentin concentration decreased following liraglutide (mean difference -11.8 mmol/l, 95% CI: -18.1 to-4.16, P: 0.001) There was no difference in glicentin between good and poor responders at baseline (n=17 in each group).

Conclusion: Liraglutide treatment is associated with a significant reduction in fasting glicentin concentration. Possible explanation is that liraglutide can downregulate glicentin in a manner similar to endogenous GLP-1. Larger studies maybe needed using both fasting and postprandial samples (where glicentin concentration is higher) to better assess the clinical utility of glicentin as a predictor of good weight loss response to liraglutide.