A common diabetes drug has been shown to help obese people who don't have diabetes lose weight and keep it off.

In new research published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Columbia University scientists found the drug liraglutide — brand name: Victoza — helped nearly two-thirds of people taking it for a little over a year to lose 5 percent of their body weight, Live Science reports.

That’s nearly twice the weight lost by a comparison group of individuals in the study and the amount experts say can make a difference in reducing the risks of obesity-related health conditions, such as diabetes, heart disease, and certain forms of cancer.

"It is a very effective drug. It seems to be as good as any of the others on the market, so it adds another possibility for doctors to treat patients who are having trouble either losing weight or maintaining weight loss once they get the weight off," said lead researcher Xavier Pi-Sunyer, M.D., a professor of medicine at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City.

Liraglutide has been used to treat people with diabetes since 2010. The drug mimics a naturally occurring hormone called glucagon-like peptide-1, which is released in the human intestine and reduces hunger, increases satiety and slows the rate at which the stomach empties its contents into the small intestine.

The Food and Drug Administration approved liraglutide (at a higher dose than is used for diabetes) to treat obesity in December 2014.

For the new study, Pi-Sunyer and his colleagues randomly assigned 3,731 overweight or obese men and women to receive a 3.0-milligram dose of liraglutide daily, or a placebo shot. About 2,500 patients in the study were given liraglutide, and about 1,200 were given the placebo injections.

After 56 weeks, the participants on liraglutide lost an average of 18.5 pounds, compared with 6.4 pounds for the people on the placebo. Among the patients on liraglutide, 33 percent lost at least 10 percent of their body weight.

Drawbacks to the medication include its high cost — about $1,000 for a month of treatment — and the fact that it must be given by injection. Most insurers don't cover liraglutide for treating obesity. Also, Pi-Sunyer said, patients often have to be on the drug indefinitely to maintain weight loss.

Nevertheless, "every tool we discover for obesity is good news," said Elias Siraj, M.D., a professor of medicine at Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia, who was not involved in the new study but co-authored an editorial accompanying it in the journal. "The reason is, we are in the midst of a huge global obesity epidemic, and there's no question it has not been easy to manage obesity."

The company Novo Nordisk, the maker of liraglutide, funded the research.