Obesity drug provides heart health benefits alongside weight loss, study finds

DUBLIN, May 19 (Reuters) – Take Novo Nordisk’s (NOVOB.CO) A new obesity drug could help reduce the risk of heart disease and boost weight loss, according to a new US study.

After one year of taking semaglutide, marketed as Wegovy, patients’ risk of suffering conditions like a heart attack or stroke in the next ten years fell to 6.3% from 7.6% when measured by a commonly used calculator, Mayo Clinic researchers found.

The findings, which were presented this week at the European Obesity Congress in Dublin, are among the first indications that weight loss induced by new GLP-1 agonist drugs like Wegovy also provide heart health benefits – what scientists expected, but did not. still a lot of comprehensive data to prove.

The study was only done on 93 patients, and the researchers said more and larger studies are needed to see if the reduced risk score actually means less disease and death in the long term.

Novo is expected to release results from its 5-year SELECT trial on the health impact of its injectable drug, particularly with respect to heart disease, later this year. Investors, governments and insurers are watching the data carefully.

“This is extremely important because we know that obesity is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease,” Dr Andres Acosta, one of the researchers, told Reuters.

“So the question is, with drugs that are 15% [average weight loss]can we really start to improve cardiovascular risk and say that people are dying less?

The risk was calculated using the American College of Cardiology calculator, based on data such as blood pressure and cholesterol levels. The team assessed the risk before the patients – mostly white women, with an average BMI of 39.8, but no history of heart disease – started the drug as well as after a year of taking it.

The research has been reviewed by the congress organisers, the European Association for the Study of Obesity, but the full paper is not yet available. The study was not funded by Novo.

Reporting by Jennifer Rigby, editing by Louise Heavens

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