Semaglutide linked to ‘significant and consistent’ benefits for heart bypass surgery patients
Semaglutide is associated with significant cardiovascular benefits for overweight and obese patients who have previously undergone coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery, according to new data published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.[1]
Semaglutide is a popular GLP-1 receptor agonist being sold by Novo Nordisk under the brand names Wegovy and Ozempic. GLP-1 receptor agonists were originally developed to treat diabetes, but they are being used more and more to help obese and overweight patients lose weight.
For this latest analysis, researchers tracked data from the SELECT trial, originally designed to examine semaglutide’s impact among overweight/obese patients without diabetes, and focused exclusively on more than 2,000 patients with a prior history of CABG. The patients had a mean age of 65 years old, 84.2% were men and the mean BMI was 31.9 kg/m2. A history of hypertension was seen in 85.6% of patients. The rates of pre-existing atrial fibrillation and heart failure were 12.5% and 33.4%, respectively.
The study’s results confirmed that CABG patients still face an elevated risk of ischemic cardiovascular events following treatment. And once again, researchers wrote, semaglutide has been linked to “significant and consistent reductions” in the risk of such events.
CABG patients treated with once-weekly subcutaneous semaglutide experienced a greater absolute risk reduction in the study’s primary outcome—major adverse cardiovascular events, including mortality from cardiovascular causes, nonfatal myocardial infarctions and nonfatal strokes—than patients treated with a placebo. In addition, semaglutide was associated with “a consistent reduction in the development of incident diabetes” compared to a placebo in this high-risk patient population.
“In addition to its known anti-atherosclerotic effects, semaglutide may affect graft patency, which could contribute to the reduction in nonfatal myocardial infarctions, and an important driver of long-term prognosis in these patients,” wrote first author Subodh Verma, MD, PhD, a cardiovascular surgeon with the University of Toronto, and colleagues. “The observation that semaglutide reduces the incidence of new onset biochemical diabetes, a risk factor for graft occlusion, may also contribute to the noted benefits. Previous studies showed that semaglutide’s cardiovascular benefits are not solely the result of weight loss. We observed a consistent relative risk reduction in the CABG group despite less weight loss, a finding aligning with existing literature.”
Verma et al. did note that women and Black patients were underrepresented in their analysis. This detail, they wrote, limits the generalizability of the study.
Novo Nordisk sponsored this research. Click here to read the full analysis in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Michael has more than 18 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.