Victoza and Weight Loss: Your Liraglutide Guide

Losing unhealthy weight and keeping it off is a tall order—and traditional means of weight loss aren’t always effective. Fortunately, the science of weight loss is making great strides and coming up with solutions (such as medications like liraglutide, semaglutide, and tirzepatide) that help people reach a healthy weight and stay there. Here we’ll take a closer look at liraglutide, more commonly known by one of its brand names, Victoza.

Why use liraglutide—or any medication—to help you lose weight?

There will always be those who argue that weight loss should only be accomplished “the old-fashioned way,” by eating less and exercising more, but this is a narrow view of achieving optimal health. We should all strive to eat a healthy diet and adopt an active lifestyle that gets us moving on most days, so it’s true that diet and exercise should take center stage when trying to lose weight or manage obesity. For many of us, though, burning more calories than we eat each day to achieve a calorie deficit is tough to maintain. 

Why is that? There are many factors—inside your body and outside it—that are working against you. 

Here’s a quick review of the barriers standing in the way of maintaining a healthy weight long term. When you understand all of these barriers, it becomes clear that taking a weight loss medication, such as liraglutide or semaglutide, is a sensible solution for many people facing obesity or overweight with complications:

1. Appetite hormones. When you lose weight—even if you do it in a healthy way—your body fights against you keeping that weight off. Hormones like leptin and peptide YY decrease, and that makes you feel hungry. Hormones like ghrelin increase, and that also makes you feel hungry. Your body can change in ways that encourage you to regain the weight you lost, sometimes making weight loss maintenance a challenge.
2. Unhealthful food options. Ultra-processed foods, which are packed full of sugar and stripped of nutrients, are all around us. Nearly 60% of Americans’ calories come from ultra-processed foods. It’s true that we can generally choose to say no to these foods—but the promise of cheap, easy, and tasty food is hard to ignore. 
3. Emotions and behaviors. Healthy eating is hard because eating isn’t just a simple physical requirement that we have to complete each day—it incorporates emotion, culture, family and social interaction, financial situation, stress level, mood, and so much more.
4. Genetics and metabolism. Due to these two factors, losing unhealthy weight is simply more difficult for some people than others. When your metabolism isn’t working effectively, “just eat fewer calories” is not a viable solution.  

What is liraglutide?

Scientists discovered back in the late 1990s that GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide 1) that is naturally produced by our bodies decreases hunger and food intake. Natural GLP-1 causes the stomach to empty more slowly, making you feel full longer. GLP-1 also tells the pancreas to release more insulin and less glucagon, thereby decreasing blood glucose levels. 

Scientists wanted to recreate this naturally occurring hormone—but there was one problem: GLP-1 is used up by the body very quickly—in a matter of minutes. 

So, scientists had to modify natural GLP-1 to last longer. The result was the GLP-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1 RA) liraglutide, developed by the pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk. When you look at the structure of the molecules, liraglutide and natural GLP-1 are 97% identical.

How does liraglutide help you lose weight?

Simply put, liraglutide helps you reduce the number of calories you eat each day. Just like the natural GLP-1 hormone your body produces, liraglutide causes the stomach to empty slowly (making you feel full longer) and helps regulate your blood sugar by adjusting the levels of insulin and glucagon in your blood. As a result, you feel hungry less often and therefore eat less.

What is Victoza?

In 2010, liraglutide was approved by the FDA to be taken (along with diet and exercise) to lower blood sugar in people over 10 years old with type 2 diabetes. It is also approved to be taken to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke in adults with type 2 diabetes and heart disease. For these two indications, liraglutide is prescribed as the brand name Victoza and comes in a 1.2 mg or 1.8 mg daily injection. It is also prescribed by providers to help people lose weight. 

Note: In 2024, Novo Nordisk’s patent on liraglutide expires, allowing other companies to produce generic versions of Victoza.