Peptides/Weight and appetite
Liraglutide
Also sold as Saxenda, Victoza
The daily injection that came before Ozempic. Less weight loss than the weekly options, but well studied and often easier to get.
At a glance
What people use it for
- Steady weight loss when weekly options are unavailable
- Managing type 2 diabetes
- Weight management in adolescents aged 12 and over
How it is taken
A daily injection under the skin, using a pre-filled pen.
Evidence
Strong human evidence
Good to know
- Nausea and vomiting, particularly while the dose is being increased
- A daily injection is harder to stick with than a weekly one
- Gallbladder problems and, rarely, pancreatitis
Liraglutide was the first GLP-1 medicine most people heard about, approved for diabetes in 2010 and for weight in 2014. It works the same way as semaglutide, copying the gut hormone that signals fullness. The difference is that it clears from the body faster, so it needs injecting every day rather than once a week.
Why it still matters
Two reasons. It has the longest safety record in this family of medicines, with well over a decade of real-world use. And when the weekly options are out of stock or out of budget, liraglutide is often available.
It is also approved for adolescents from 12 years old, which the newer options are only beginning to catch up on.
What the evidence shows
In the SCALE trials, adults lost roughly 8% of their body weight over a year, against about 2.6% on placebo. That is meaningful but clearly less than the 15% seen with semaglutide or the 20% with tirzepatide.
The LEADER trial also showed reduced cardiovascular events in people with type 2 diabetes.
What to know before
The daily injection is the honest sticking point. Weekly dosing is not just convenient; people simply keep taking it for longer, and a medicine you stop is a medicine that stops working.
Side effects follow the same pattern as the rest of the family: mostly digestive, mostly early, mostly manageable by increasing the dose slowly.
Last reviewed .