Examine exhibits semaglutide has ‘far-reaching advantages’ and potential to guard in opposition to a ‘broad spectrum’ of well being threats.
A brand new examine exploring the impression of semaglutide on mortality has led a number one heart specialist to recommend that weight reduction medication like Ozempic and Wegovy might delay the getting older course of. The analysis, revealed final week within the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), assessed the impression of semaglutide remedy on cardiovascular deaths, non-cardiovascular deaths and loss of life from COVID-19.
The examine produce an surprising end result: a notable discount in non-cardiovascular deaths, significantly these attributable to an infection. The discount was attributed to the surge in non-cardiovascular deaths throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, permitting researchers to look at the drug’s protecting results extra clearly. The researchers recommend that the outcomes present semaglutide’s advantages prolong to mitigating the broader dangers related to weight problems, which is linked to elevated mortality throughout varied well being situations.
“This groundbreaking examine demonstrates that semaglutide, maybe by enhancing cardiometabolic well being, has far-reaching advantages past what we initially imagined,” mentioned heart specialist and Yale College professor Harlan Krumholz. “The flexibility of semaglutide to considerably decrease cardiovascular and COVID-19-related hostile occasions underscores the transformative potential of focusing on weight problems and enhancing cardiometabolic well being as a method to guard in opposition to a broad spectrum of well being threats.”
We first urged final 12 months that semaglutide could be a potential longevity drug as a consequence of its results past weight reduction and diabetes prevention. And Krumholz seems to concur, having been widely quoted as saying, “It wouldn’t shock me that enhancing folks’s well being on this means truly slows down the getting older course of.”
This additionally backs up what College of Copenhagen professor and semaglutide analysis pioneer Jens Juul Holst told us earlier this 12 months, when he urged it was “extra possible than not” that the medication will impact longevity.
The brand new examine was based mostly on the current SELECT trial, which demonstrated that remedy with semaglutide resulted in a 20% discount within the incidence of main hostile cardiovascular occasions. The researchers tailored the SELECT trial outcomes to account for the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, so the researchers have been in a position to doc the epidemiological impression of the virus on sufferers with heart problems and weight problems. This supplied insights into the character of infectious illness mortality, in addition to the position of weight and cardiometabolic well being in figuring out outcomes from COVID-19 and different infections.
The examine’s lead writer, Dr Benjamin Scirica, a professor of cardiovascular drugs at Harvard Medical Faculty, admitted that the “sturdy discount” in non-cardiovascular deaths was stunning.
“Nonetheless, these findings reinforce that chubby and weight problems will increase the chance of loss of life as a consequence of many etiologies, which could be modified with potent incretin-based therapies like semaglutide,” he mentioned.
