Higher dose of Wegovy ups both weight loss and side effects
Trial participants who received an increased weekly dose of Wegovy lost 19 per cent of their body weight in a year on average, but also saw a higher risk of painful skin sensations and nausea
By Carissa Wong
14 September 2025
Weekly Wegovy injections can help people lose weight
James Manning/PA Images/Alamy
A higher weekly dose of Wegovy achieves even greater weight loss than the standard amount, but this comes with a greater risk of side effects, according to trial results.
Prior studies have shown people who get a standard weekly injection of Wegovy, which contains the active ingredient semaglutide, typically lose about 15 per cent of their body weight over a year when combined with exercise and eating healthily. The drug works by mimicking the action of the hormone glucagon-like peptide-1, or GLP1, which has several effects such as slowing stomach emptying and acting on the brain to reduce appetite.
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Wegovy, made by pharmaceutical firm Novo Nordisk, is approved to treat people with obesity and those who are overweight and have at least one weight-related condition like type 2 diabetes. “But there are patients who don’t respond as well as they could, or who respond well but desire more than the typical 10 to 15 per cent weight loss,” says Lora Heisler at the University of Aberdeen, UK, who wasn’t involved in the study.
To explore whether upping the dose could help, Sean Wharton at the University of Toronto in Canada and his colleagues, including scientists at Novo Nordisk, recruited more than 1000 adults with obesity in 11 countries including the US, Canada and parts of Europe.
They randomly assigned the participants, none of whom had diabetes, to take either a standard 2.4 milligram weekly injection of semaglutide – as found in Wegovy – a higher dose of 7.2 milligrams, or a placebo injection. Those on semaglutide were gradually ramped up to their assigned dose over several weeks. All the participants were also advised to eat 500 fewer calories a day and do 150 minutes of exercise per week.
