A new drug called retatrutide, which hits three hormone receptors at once, has been tested in four small clinical trials and consistently beat placebo in shrinking weight. The biggest effect was seen with a 12 mg dose, and side‑effects were about the same as taking a dummy pill. While more research is still needed, the early data suggest it could be a powerful tool for people looking to lose fat and improve metabolic health.

Retatrutide is a novel triple hormone receptor agonist which has shown great promise in tackling obesity in preliminary trials. We did this systematic review and meta-analysis to pool the results of all available trials and ascertain its safety and efficacy in the treatment of obesity. A literature search was conducted in PubMed, Cochrane Central and Embase using appropriate search terms and randomized control trials (RCTs) were identified which reported the safety and efficacy of retatrutide. Data was pooled using mean differences for continuous variables and risk ratios for the safety profile in RStudio. After the initial search four RCTs were included in the analysis which compared the safety and efficacy of retatrutide versus placebo. Retatrutide showed a dose dependent relationship with the 12 mg dose causing the maximum reductions across all the outcomes considered. The safety profile of retatrutide was found to be comparable to the control group. In conclusion our analysis found retatrutide to be clinically and statistically better than placebo in the various studies outcomes. We eagerly await the conduction of further trials for more robust and substantial results. www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero identifier is CRD42024566153.