Shifting Trends in GLP-1RA Prescriptions: Daily Dose

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Patient Care brings primary care clinicians a lot of medical news every day—it’s easy to miss an important study. The Daily Dose provides a concise summary of one of the website's leading stories you may not have seen.

On July 23, 2024, we reported on findings from a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine that examined the nationwide trend in glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1 RA) prescription patterns.

The study

Researchers conducted a population-based study using data from TriNetX, a federated research network of deidentified records of 45 million individuals with at least 1 outpatient or inpatient visit in the US between 2011 and 2023. The diversity of the data spans geography, age, ethnicities, income, and insurance type. After delineating annual trends in new GLP-1 RA prescriptions over the 12-year period, they categorized each by the presence of type 2 diabetes (T2D) and comorbidities related to T2D or obesity.

The findings

Among the nearly 872 000 individuals in the US who received a first-time prescription for a GLP-1 RA between 2011 and 2023, a decreasing proportion of the new users had T2D but there was a twofold increase in the proportion of users without T2D but with a BMI indicative of obesity (equal to or greater than 30 kg/m²) or of overweight (27 to 30 kg/m²) plus an obesity related comorbidity.

Overall annual prescribing of new GLP-1 RA rose from 0.5% in 2019 to more than 3% in 2023 with the greatest increase, more than 600 000, recorded between 2019 and 2023. Semaglutide accounted for more than 88% of new GLP-1 RA prescriptions in 2023, an increase from 31.4% in 2019.

Authors' comment

"Essentially, after the medication was approved for obesity, GLP-1 RA use took off so quickly that we lost control and vision of how fast people were picking up these medications, and the trends of use are uncertain. While GLP1-RAs offer several benefits, they are also associated with various common and uncommon side effects, necessitating careful monitoring of their prescription patterns.”

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