- Researchers report that people who were overweight or had obesity lowered their cardiovascular risks after taking the weight-loss drug Wegovy for one year.
- Experts say they hope these findings will encourage more medical professionals to prescribe the medication to their patients.
- They also point out that the key to the improved heart health was not the medication itself but rather the loss of weight in study participants.
A weight-loss drug may help prevent heart attacks, stroke, and other forms of cardiovascular disease, researchers say.
In a new study, researchers reported that people treated with the obesity drug semaglutide experienced a decline in their cardiovascular risk after using the medication for a year.
The people who took semaglutide experienced a drop in their 10-year risk of developing atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease from 7.6% to 6.3% between the start of the study and the one-year mark, according to the study presented at the European Congress on Obesity in Dublin, Ireland.
Semaglutide users experienced declines in blood pressure, total cholesterol, triglycerides, and blood sugar levels.
People using the weight-loss drug also lost an average of almost 11% of their body weight after one year, the researchers reported.
Their findings haven’t been published yet in a peer-reviewed journal.
Semaglutide is sold under the brand names Ozempic, Wegovy, and Rybelsus.
It was initially approved to treat type 2 diabetes in 2017. A high-dose, injectable version (Wegovy) was
Researchers led by Dr. Andres Acosta and Dr. Wissam Ghusn of the Precision Medicine for Obesity Program at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota based their findings on a study of 93 people who were either overweight or had obesity along with a body-mass index…
Read the full article here