Nutritional Therapy to Manage GI Side Effects of Anti-Obesity Medications

Incretin-based anti-obesity medications, such as GLP-1 receptor agonists, have revolutionized the treatment of obesity due to their significant efficacy in weight loss and metabolic improvements. However, a major challenge to patient adherence and treatment success is the high incidence of gastrointestinal (GI) adverse events (e.g., nausea, vomiting, diarrhea) during the initial up-titration phase. This clinical trial aims to evaluate if adjuvant nutritional therapy can mitigate these common GI side effects, thereby improving treatment tolerability and adherence.

While the study is currently recruiting, researchers hypothesize that the adjuvant nutritional therapy group will experience a significant reduction in the incidence and severity of gastrointestinal adverse events compared to the control group. They aim to observe a decrease of at least 30% in reported nausea and vomiting, and a 25% reduction in diarrhea episodes. The primary outcome expects to demonstrate a statistically significant improvement in patient tolerability, potentially leading to an increase of over 20% in medication adherence rates during the critical up-titration period. Secondary outcomes will likely include a comparison of weight loss trajectories and overall quality of life scores between the two groups, anticipating better outcomes in the intervention arm.