admin One of the popular GLP-1 agonist weight loss drugs, Wegovy, may have effects beyond shedding pounds, according to Novo Nordisk, the manufacturer of the drug. Preliminary results of a trial of 17,604 adults over the age of 45 with obesity and and heart disease is the first one to show potential long-term cardiovascular benefits, as Stat News reported this week.
There are ongoing concerns about GLP-1s, specifically regarding reduced muscle mass and gastrointestinal distress, but this latest trial show these drugs may have implications beyond weight loss. Key details of the trial are not yet fully available, as The New York Times noted. For example, the 20% decrease in risk of heart attack, strokes, and cardiovascular deaths are not broken out by outcomes. The specific results of this trial will be presented at a conference later this year.
But the announcement has observers excited, and the implications of this trial are widespread, if they hold. Weight on its own is not the absolute indicator of health it was once considered. But if there are cardiovascular benefits to drugs like Wegovy, insurers will have difficulty not paying to cover it, as Craig Garthwaite, a health economist at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, told the Times.
It is still not clear how exactly the drug decreases cardiovascular risk. But as experts told the Times, these new drugs could shift how obesity is clinically approached and treated. It’s a huge potential shift from previous obesity drugs.
Other obesity drugs in the past, including sibutramine and “fen-phen” were actually discontinued because of their adverse cardiovascular effects. Use of weight loss drugs in the past, “is typically accompanied by various serious acute or chronic adverse effects,” according to a 2022 paper in Nature. “A notable exception, it adds, is semaglutide, the generic term for Wegovy (and Ozempic, another popular weight loss drug).
The potential cardiovascular benefit of semaglutide is just one more pathway that this new class of drugs seems to affect. Patients on the drug have reported decreased alcohol consumption, gambling, and other addictive behaviors, according to Scientific American, though the exact mechanism of how this works, and to what extent, is yet to be fully understood.
