Trinity compound research profile
Tirzepatide
Tirzepatide (lab code LY3298176) is a lab-made peptide sold under the brand names Mounjaro (for diabetes) and Zepbound (for weight loss). It's built from...
Research overview
Tirzepatide (lab code LY3298176) is a lab-made peptide sold under the brand names Mounjaro (for diabetes) and Zepbound (for weight loss). It's built from 39 amino acids based on the structure of a natural gut hormone called GIP, with a fat molecule attached to make it last about 5 days in the body (IUPHAR/BPS peptide dataset; Min et al., 2025).
Mechanism under study
Tirzepatide is nicknamed a "twincretin" because it copies two different gut hormones at once — GIP and GLP-1. Both of these hormones tell your body to release insulin when blood sugar rises, calm down the hormone that raises blood sugar (glucagon), slow digestion, and reduce hunger. By hitting both signals together, it tends to work even more strongly than drugs that only copy one hormone (StatPearls).
Human evidence summary
In a study of 2,539 people over 72 weeks, people taking weekly tirzepatide lost between 15% and 21% of their body weight depending on the dose, compared to about 3% for placebo, and roughly half of people at the higher doses lost 20% or more of their body weight (Jastreboff et al., NEJM 2022). In a separate diabetes study, tirzepatide lowered a key blood-sugar marker (HbA1c) by more than 2 percentage points (StatPearls).
Preclinical evidence summary
The existing research profile does not include separate animal-study details for tirzepatide — because it's been so thoroughly tested and is already FDA-approved, the gathered evidence is dominated by large human clinical trials rather than animal research.
Source material
Use the linked publications and records to evaluate study design, population, limitations, and relevance.