Tirzepatide suppresses palatable food intake by selectively reducing preference for fat in rodents

Aim: To investigate the role of glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide receptor (GIPR) agonists alone or combined with glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor (GLP-1R) agonists to regulate palatable food intake and the role of specific macronutrients in these preferences.

Methods: To understand this regulation, we treated mice and rats on several choice diet paradigms of chow and a palatable food option with individual or dual GIPR and GLP-1R agonists.

Results: In mice, the dual agonist tirzepatide suppressed total caloric intake, while promoting the intake of chow over a high fat/sucrose diet. Surprisingly, GIPR agonism alone did not alter food choice. The food intake shift observed with tirzepatide in wild-type mice was completely absent in GLP-1R knockout mice, suggesting that GIPR signalling does not regulate food preference. Tirzepatide also selectively suppressed the intake of palatable food but not chow in a rat two-diet choice model. This suppression was specific to lipids, as GLP-1R agonist and dual agonist treatment in rats on a choice paradigm assessing individual palatable macronutrients robustly inhibited the intake of Crisco (lipid) without decreasing the intake of a sucrose (carbohydrate) solution.

Conclusions: Decreasing preference for high-caloric, high-fat foods is a powerful action of GLP-1R and dual GIPR/GLP-1R agonist therapeutics, which may contribute to the weight loss success of these drugs.