The benefits of weight-loss drugs have been making headlines for years now, helping people drop massive amounts of weight, lower heart disease risks, and manage type 2 diabetes. However, as more studies are conducted, additional pros of the medications are being identified. In fact, researchers from the latest study suggest that semaglutide (better known by Novo Nordisk's brand names Wegovy and Ozempic) can slow aging and lower the risk of death from COVID.
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The data was published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology on Aug. 30 and presented at the European Society of Cardiology Conference 2024.
Findings suggest that Ozempic and Wegovy may lower the risk of all-cause death and be used to treat illnesses related to heart failure, Alzheimer's disease, and cancer. But beyond that, it seems like the treatment may have an anti-aging effect.
“Semaglutide has far-reaching benefits beyond what we initially imagined,” said Harlan Krumholz, professor at Yale School of Medicine, per BBC. “It’s not just avoiding heart attacks. These are health promoters. It wouldn’t surprise me that improving people’s health this way actually slows down the ageing process.”
The recently published studies were part of the SELECT trial, which included approximately 17,604 patients ages 45 and older randomly assigned to take a semaglutide injection or placebo for 3.3 years. All participants had cardiovascular disease but did not have diabetes. (While they have the same active ingredient, Ozempic is only indicated for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, while Wegovy is indicated for weight management.)
When compared to the placebo group, those taking semaglutide had lower rates of all-cause death, including from cardiovascular issues and COVID. While they still got COVID at the same rate as those who weren't taking the medication, those who were taking semaglutide were roughly 33 percent less likely to die from the infection, The New York Timesreported.
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Investigators weren't initially evaluating the effects that semaglutide would have on people who contracted COVID, but when the pandemic arose, they began collecting data to study the relationship. Still, they didn't necessarily expect the drug to have an effect, Benjamin Scirica, MD, associate professor of cardiovascular medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, told the NYT.
"The robust reduction in non-cardiovascular death, and particularly infections deaths, was surprising," Scirica said, per The Guardian. "These findings reinforce that overweight and obesity increases the risk of death due to many etiologies which can be modified with therapies like semaglutide."
Looking at the medications more broadly, researchers are also hopeful about the medication's potential.
“All the hype around various pharmaceutical drugs that we hear is exactly that—hype," Jeremy Faust, MD, MS, an emergency physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital and instructor at Harvard Medical School, said, per the NYT. "But these drugs are repeatedly and routinely demonstrating that they are game changers."
Faust also noted that the positive health effects are due to "more than just losing weight." Investigators posit that they actually improve overall health and reduce chronic inflammation. Scirica told the outlet that he plans to review other studies of glucagon-like peptide-1 inhibitors (the class of drugs semaglutide falls under) to examine their effect on infectious disease and stresses the need to initiate new studies with that as a key data point.
