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Popular weight loss drug Wegovy appears to offer more health benefits to people with diabetes and a common type of heart failure New research shows it does more than just help you lose weight.

The study, published Saturday in the New England Journal of Medicine, compared patients with type 2 diabetes who also had obesity-related heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, one of the most common types of heart failure. Showed how medicine helped. This condition occurs when the heart beats regularly but is too stiff to fill properly.

Current treatments for this condition include lifestyle changes and heart medications, but there are no treatments specifically approved to treat this specific condition, and the number of people with this condition has increased significantly, the study authors said.

Obesity-related heart failure with preserved ejection fraction can severely limit the ability to participate in activities of daily living. People often tire easily and have difficulty breathing, and this condition can carry a high risk of hospitalization, disability, and death.

Patients with type 2 diabetes who often have this type of heart failure The disease is more severe than in people without diabetes.

The researchers who carried out the study (funded by drug manufacturer Novo Nordisk) found that Wigobee had significant positive health effects in people with this heart disease but not diabetes. The results of a study that discovered this were published last fall. However, diabetic patients may respond differently to medications;, They wanted to see if similar results would be obtained with this additional group.

People with more severe heart failure may not respond to drugs as well as people with less severe heart failure. Weight loss studies also found that diabetics who took Wegovy tended to lose weight, but not as much as people without diabetes.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved two injectable semaglutide drugs that mimic the body’s GLP-1 hormone, which helps produce insulin and signals the brain to reduce appetite. Ozempic was approved in 2017 for his type 2 diabetes, and Wigoby was approved in 2021 for obesity. The FDA approved Wegovy in March to reduce the risk of cardiovascular death, heart attack, and stroke in obese or overweight adults with cardiovascular disease.

New research seems to further prove that Wegovy’s benefits extend to diabetics as well.

For the study, researchers randomly assigned 616 people with type 2 diabetes and heart failure with preserved ejection fraction into two groups. Participants were from 108 institutions in 16 countries across Asia, Europe, and the Americas, and all had a BMI of 30 or higher. One group received his Wegovy and the other group received a placebo.

Participants receiving Wegovy started on a low dose and increased to a dose of 2.4 milligrams once a week. The researchers followed both groups for one year.

People who received Wegovy had much better outcomes, losing weight and having significantly fewer heart failure-related symptoms and physical limitations compared to those who received a placebo.

I could have walked further in 6 minutes. Biomarkers for inflammation and other problems also improved.

The group treated with Wegovy had fewer adverse events, such as hospitalizations and emergency doctor visits, but the number of events was small in both groups.

There were 55 serious adverse events reported in the Wegovy group and 88 serious adverse events in the placebo group. During the study period, in the Wegovy group he had 6 deaths, while in other groups he had 10 deaths. One death in the Wegovy group and four deaths in the placebo group were related to cardiovascular problems.

The consistent positive results from this trial and one published last year appear to suggest Wegovy is an effective and safe treatment for a wide range of people, including people with diabetes, the study said. said co-author Dr. Mikhail Kosivolod, a cardiologist and associate physician. Director of Research at St. Luke’s Health System in Kansas City, Missouri.

One of the most common questions he received after the study was published last year was whether he thought weight loss had the biggest positive impact on heart failure patients. But new research may show otherwise, he said.

“I think the answers from the trial clearly suggest that while weight loss is likely an important factor, it doesn’t explain everything,” Kosiborod said.

If patients with diabetes lost 40% less weight with the drug than similar heart disease patients without diabetes, one might expect the effect to be 40% less, but the positive effects were actually about the same. he said.

“I think this is very interesting because, first of all, these patients are very difficult to treat, and there are more of them every day,” Kosiborod said. “And until recently, we had very little to offer. So if we could see that it actually changes the disease process, we’d have something that’s really effective and, by the way, also very well-tolerated. That’s great news for patients, of course.”It’s great news for doctors treating patients. ”

This study has some limitations.The US patient population was more diverse than the general US Patient population (26% of study participants) However, trial sites in other parts of the world are less diverse, making it difficult to generalize these results to everyone. Researchers also need to follow people for more than a year to see if the drug has a lasting effect.

This new study shows how important robust randomized trials are in showing that these weight loss drugs are beneficial and safe, said Professor of Cardiometabolic Medicine at the University of Glasgow, who co-authored the study. is not involved in research for a company that makes weight loss drugs. “The evidence here is growing, which is reassuring,” Sattar told the Science Media Center, an organization that provides scientific perspectives to the media.

“This new, well-conducted study once again suggests that we have underestimated the effect of excess weight on the development of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction. Obesity prevention remains critically important; A new treatment that helps people with obesity lose an appropriate amount of weight could help improve the lives of many people living with heart failure and many other conditions associated with obesity. Yes,” Sattar said.

Professor Kosiborod, who presented the study at the American College of Cardiology meeting in Atlanta on Saturday, said he believed the study could also open up entirely new treatments for heart failure by treating obesity.

“Obesity, it’s more than weight. It’s a systemic cardiometabolic disease that causes all sorts of negative effects, and treating obesity involves weight loss, but it’s much more than that,” he said. Told. “We have to aim for this. I think future standards of care for this type of heart failure will improve, and that will certainly include obesity management.”

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