A new study reveals that semaglutide (the active ingredient in the drugs Wigovi and Ozambic) can prevent heart attacks and other major heart diseases, regardless of how much weight a person loses while taking it.
This discovery, the researchers say, suggests that there are multiple ways in which the drug benefits the heart, rather than just its protective effect on cardiovascular health resulting from weight loss.
The study was completed by an international team of researchers led by researchers from the University of London in the United Kingdom, and their results were published in the Lancet magazine on October 22, funded by Novo Nordisk, and written about by the Eurick Alert website.
The study examined data on 17,604 people aged 45 years and over, suffering from overweight and cardiovascular disease, who were randomly assigned to either weekly injections of semaglutide or a placebo.
A previous analysis of this data by the same international team found that semaglutide reduced heart attacks, strokes and other major heart events by 20% in this group.
Belly fat has the secret
In the new study, the team found that this reduction in major side effects was similar regardless of participants’ weight at the start of the trial, meaning that people who were classified as slightly overweight got similar benefits to those who were obese.
The benefits were largely independent of how much weight people lost in the first four and a half months of taking the drug. But researchers found a link between reduced waist circumference and heart health benefits, as this represented a third of the drug’s protective effect on the heart after two years.
Study co-author Professor John Denfeld, from the UCL Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences, said: “Belly fat is more risky for cardiovascular health than overall weight, and therefore it is not surprising to see a link between lower waist circumference and cardiovascular benefits. However, this still leaves two-thirds of semaglutide’s heart benefits unexplained.”
Semaglutide is a glucagon-like peptide-1 agonist and mimics the functions of the body’s natural incretin hormones, which help lower blood sugar levels after eating.