Liraglutide is a type of medication you might need to take to help you lose weight.
- What is liraglutide?
- How does liraglutide work?
- Are there shortages of liraglutide?
- How to take liraglutide
- Who can take liraglutide?
- Your prescription
- Side effects of liraglutide
- More information and support
What is liraglutide?
Liraglutide belongs to a group of drugs called GLP-1 agonists. There are several different GLP-1 agonists available in the UK.
You can take liraglutide it on its own or with other diabetes medications.
How does liraglutide work?
Liraglutude has the brand name Saxenda, and used to have the brand name Victoza.
Saxenda
Saxenda is used as a weight loss drug. It helps to reduce appetite, so you feel fuller for longer. It can also reduce the risk of heart disease.
Victoza
Victoza was used to treat type 2 diabetes.
It worked by helping your body to produce more insulin when needed. It also reduced the amount of glucose produced by the body and slowed down how quickly food is digested.
Victoza has now been discontinued.
How to take liraglutide
Liraglutide is an injection that you take once a day. Your healthcare team will give you more information about how to take liraglutide, and how to inject.
Always take liraglutide exactly as your healthcare professional has told you. The Patient Information Leaflet inside the box will tell you how to take it but always check with your healthcare professional if you are not sure.
Who can take liraglutide?
Adults or children over 12 years old can take liraglutide.
You might be eligible for this medication if you have have a Body Mass Index, known as BMI, of 35kg/m² or more, you have prediabetes or type 2 diabetes, and you're at high risk of heart problems such as heart attack and stroke.
Liraglutide can only be prescribed by weight management services, so you will need to be referred to specialist NHS weight management services by your doctor, or privately through a registered healthcare professional.
Guidelines from The National Institute of Health and Care Excellence, or NICE for short, recommend – due to their risk from obesity-related health problems at a lower BMI – that people from Black African, African-Caribbean, Asian, South Asian, Chinese, and Middle Eastern backgrounds receive treatment with liraglutide at a lower BMI.
Who can’t take liraglutide?
Some medications might not be suitable for some people, which might be because of medical conditions or other reasons:
- Your doctor might tell you to stop taking liraglutide if you develop diabetic ketoacidosis, or DKA;
- If you have kidney disease you might not be able to take liraglutide, but this will depend on the stage of your kidney disease;
- If you have severe liver disease you will not be able to take liraglutide;
- You might need to temporarily stop liraglutide if you’re going to have an operation;
- You should not take liraglutide if you are pregnant of breastfeeding. If you’re planning a pregnancy speak with a healthcare professional if you are using this medication.
When you start a new medication always check with your healthcare team that it’s suitable for you to take.
Your prescription
You should only be given a prescription for liraglutide following an assessment by your healthcare team to make sure that you meet the criteria and that you’ll benefit from its use.
This should be an individual assessment that includes how liraglutide will fit into your current treatment plan and considers any diet or activity programme that you are following, as well as the risk of side effects, the dose you’ll need, and your personal choices.
Your healthcare team should explain your prescription to you but it's important to make sure you ask if you don't feel you know enough.
And make sure you talk to your GP or your diabetes team if you struggle to take liraglutide. They might be able to help by giving you a different dose.
In England, if you need to take any medication to manage your diabetes, your prescriptions will be free. Ask your healthcare team about a prescription exemption certificate if you don't have one, to make sure you don't get charged for your medication. Prescriptions are already free for everybody in the rest of the UK, so you shouldn't pay for your medication.
Side effects of liraglutide
Like all medications, liraglutide can cause side effects. But when side effects are listed as common in the Patient Information Leaflet, it doesn’t mean that everyone who takes the medication will get them.
The information about side effects is based on the likelihood of people having them. For example, if a side effect is very common then it can affect more than one in ten people, and if a side effect is very rare then it affects fewer than one in 10,000 people.
Because medicines can affect people differently, your healthcare team will speak to you about what’s best for you and discuss any side effects. Side effects include:
- feeling or being sick
- diarrhoea
- reduced appetite.
This side effects should normally pass over time.
Risk of low blood sugar
When taken on its own, liraglutide does not often cause blood sugar levels to become too low. However, hypos are more common when you take liraglutide with other diabetes medications, such as insulin or a sulphonylurea.
Your healthcare team may advise reducing the dose of your sulphonylurea or insulin when you start taking liraglutide to reduce the risk of hypos.
Risk of high blood sugar
If you take liraglutide with insulin and your insulin dose is reduced too quickly it can cause high blood sugar levels or hyperglycaemia, also known as hypers, and there is an increased risk of diabetic ketoacidosis, also called DKA. Your healthcare team should discuss with you the signs and symptoms of DKA.
These are not all the side effects. You will find a full list of known side effects in the Patient Information Leaflet. This comes in the medication box.
It’s also important that you take individual advice from your healthcare team before starting liraglutide treatment and report any side effects to your healthcare professionals, if you experience any.
You can also report these side effects to the Yellow Card Scheme, which is the government system used for recording side effects with medicines in the UK.
More information and support
Still have more questions? Or is there anything you're not sure about liraglutide after reading this page? Contact our helpline on 0345 123 2399.
You can visit the NHS website for more information on liraglutide.
