Some people eat too much food. Others eat unhealthy food, perhaps because they cannot afford healthy alternatives. Other people continue to eat a balanced diet but still struggle with their weight. How we eat and how our bodies react to food greatly affects our health. More than a third of all deaths today are caused by diseases such as obesity and type 2 diabetes.

But why does the body tell us that it wants more food – even though it has enough energy? And can you get the body to settle for what it needs by adjusting the body’s control systems? These questions have puzzled researchers for decades. And translating new knowledge into something to combat these diseases turned out to be extremely challenging.

In the 1990s, as the obesity pandemic spreads, even young people start to lose their ability to keep their body weight and blood glucose in balance. In turn, researchers and pharmaceutical companies set out to find new remedies.

Follow “A diabetes doctor’s dream”, Episode 1 of the Novo Nordisk Foundation’s 2022 Advent Calendar “The Story of GLP-1”.

In an office in Bagsværd near Copenhagen, young biotechnologist Lotte Bjerre Knudsen has been made project manager for a promising, but uncertain project of converting the hormone GLP-1 into a drug that can prove effective in combating the rapidly growing wave of diseases such as type 2 diabetes in the 1990s. If she fails, the project will fold.

Follow “If you don’t fix this”, Episode 2 of the Novo Nordisk Foundation’s 2022 Advent Calendar “The Story of GLP-1”.

In 1997, Novo Nordisk scientist Lotte Bjerre Knudsen managed to turn the short-lived GLP-1 hormone into a long-acting drug candidate. However, the initial test failed as the dose was set too low. And the company could not immediately start a new trial. Victory is still far from assured. Follow “A steak well done”, Episode 3 of the Novo Nordisk Foundation’s 2022 Advent Calendar “The Story of GLP-1”.

Thousands of years ago, it was good to have ‘thriftiness’ genes that enabled the body to preserve energy (calories) during cold winters. We are still equipped with these genes, but now they are really working against us by trying to preserve a body weight ‘setpoint’ that is too high in today’s environment. This has caused obesity to spread epidemically throughout the world, driving cardio-metabolic disease (type 2 diabetes and cardio-vascular disease) to become the #1 killer globally. The race for an effective way to treat these diseases started in the 1990’s with some important results for the GLP-1 hormone when given to animals and humans.
Follow “The next really good idea”, the last episode of the Novo Nordisk Foundation’s 2022 Advent Calendar “The Story of GLP-1”.”