Beyond the scale: Why body composition is a focus at EASD 2026

The European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) held its 2026 annual meeting in Milan. Among the research presented was a question that reaches beyond diabetes care: when someone loses weight, how much of that change is fat, and where did it come from?

A body-composition analysis from Novo Nordisk’s REIMAGINE 1 trial looked at people with early type 2 diabetes receiving CagriSema. Using MRI, researchers measured changes in abdominal fat, fat in the liver and pancreas, and thigh muscle volume. They reported reductions in abdominal and organ fat alongside a reduction in thigh muscle volume.

Those measurements tell a more specific story than weight loss alone. “Lost 10 kilograms” describes the total change. Body-composition results begin to describe what changed.

The question is attracting attention across weight-loss research. At EASD, a session on Regeneron’s COURAGE study was scheduled to examine muscle composition during treatment. Meanwhile, a review of phase 3 GLP-1 and GIP/GLP-1 trials found DXA body-composition data for just 505 participants across five trials. The interest in measuring fat and lean mass is growing faster than the available trial evidence.

That shift could change what people expect from weight-loss programs. As treatment developers and providers make more specific claims about body fat and visceral fat, customers are likely to want a way to track those changes for themselves. A scale can show whether weight is moving. It cannot show whether the progress a program describes is the progress a person can see in their own body composition.

EASD’s presentations point toward a broader question for weight-loss companies: if the outcome you talk about is changing, how will people follow it over time?