Wegovy, weight loss and cardiovascular health: A closer look at how semaglutide protects the heart
Semaglutide and other GLP-1 drugs have exploded in popularity in recent years, primarily due to their ability to help patients lose weight. These drugs are also starting to be used more and more to reduce cardiovascular risks, but questions remain about how, exactly, patients can achieve the best possible benefit. A new analysis in npj Cardiovascular Health explored that very question.[1]
“Weight loss is a composite physiological readout, shaped not only by dose, but by treatment persistence, tolerability, metabolic context, baseline illness and individual biological variability,” wrote first author Karthik Murugadoss, a data scientist with the health technology company nference, and colleagues. “It is therefore possible that achieved weight reduction, although clinically salient, may serve as an incomplete surrogate for the signaling pathways most relevant to cardiovascular outcomes. Resolving this distinction is important to enable more tailored treatment plans that include semaglutide for patients with differing baseline conditions and cardiovascular risk profiles.”
Murugadoss et al. used advanced artificial intelligence (AI) to review data from more than 12,000 U.S. patients with cardiovascular disease who started taking semaglutide, which Novo Nordisk sells under the brand names Wegovy and Ozempic.
At least two years of follow-up data were available for all patients, including weight change and semaglutide dose. Daily doses typically fell between 0.25 mg to 2.4 mg. Overall, higher maximum semaglutide doses were “strongly associated” with greater weight loss. In addition, higher doses were consistently linked to lower risks of all-cause mortality, heart failure, and a composite outcome that included cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction and stroke.
On the other hand, the group added, weight loss on its own was not significantly associated with reduced rates of all-cause mortality or cardiovascular events; it was the dose of semaglutide taken that made the most direct impact on a patient’s cardiovascular outcomes.
“These findings suggest a cardioprotective role of semaglutide which may be related to attained dose but is not explained simply by the amount of weight loss achieved while on therapy,” the authors wrote.
All of this study’s authors are part of nference, a Massachusetts-based company that partners with various biopharmaceutical companies to perform AI-powered research projects. However, the group wrote, no outside companies had any role in the design or interpretation of this research.
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Michael has more than 19 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.