Objective: Previous clinical studies have reported mixed results regarding the effect of liraglutide on lipid profile. Therefore, we conducted a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials to clarify the effect of liraglutide on blood lipid concentrations.
Methods: A literature search was conducted using PubMed data bases until May 2019 to find randomized controlled trials (RCTs) which assessed liraglutide effects on blood lipid concentrations such as total cholesterol (TC), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), and triglyceride (TG) in adult participants. Treatment effects were considered as mean difference (MD) and corresponding standard deviation (SD) in concentrations of serum lipid. We use a random-effects model to estimate the overall summary effect of this study.
Results: A total of 10 trials (443 participants) were included in the meta-analysis. The result suggested that liraglutide has significant effect on reducing total cholesterol (TC) (-0.32 mmol/L; 95% CI: -0.53 to -0.12; p = 0.002) and triglyceride (TG) (-0.19 mmol/L; 95% CI: -0.38 to -0.00; p = 0.05). Meanwhile, liraglutide had no significant effect on low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) (-0.18 mmol/L; 95% CI: -0.36 to -0.01; p = 0.07) and high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) (-0.01 mg/dL, 95% CI: -0.05 to 0.04; p = 0.74).
Conclusion: Liraglutide can improve the lipid profile by decreasing total cholesterol (TC) and triglyceride (TG) concentrations. However, further studies with large-scale and better designs are needed to confirm this result.