FAP, May 14 (Editor Liu Rui) as early as November last year, Danish pharmaceutical giant Novo Nord announced that its globally popular weight loss drug Wegovy (chemical name Smeagralopeptide) can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.
But there was skepticism at the time that the heart benefits of Wegovy might be achieved indirectly through weight loss, rather than by the direct effect of the drug itself.
And this week, a new experimental study found that the benefits of the "weight loss drug" Wegovy in reducing the risk of heart disease and stroke had little to do with changes in the patient's weight. This means that Wegovy does have its own benefits for the cardiovascular system, and people at cardiovascular risk who do not need to lose weight may also apply to this "magic medicine".
Reducing cardiovascular risk is not just about losing weight.
The trial, called Select, was led by John Deinfeld (John Deanfield), a professor of cardiology at University College London. The test was the cornerstone of Novo Nord's persuasion of insurance companies to pay for Wegovy.
Professor Deinfeld said the heart benefits of drugs were generally shown in patients who participated in the Wegovy program. The patients who participated in the trial included both those who were overweight but not obese and those who did not lose much weight after taking the drug.
Patients treated with Wegovy injections had a 20 per cent lower risk of heart attack, stroke and death from cardiovascular disease, according to a detailed study published by Novo Nord in November.
But generally speaking, there is a great overlap between obese people and people with heart disease.LakesturgeonAccording to the Kaiser Family Foundation, among the beneficiaries of health insurance in the United States alone, more than 1/4 of the overweight and obese also suffer from heart disease, about 3.6 million.
In this experiment, the researchers found that by the 20th week of the trial, 62% of the subjects who took Wegovy had lost more than 5% of their initial weight. More importantly, these patients who lost significant weight had a similar reduction in cardiovascular risk to those who lost less than 5% of their weight.
Can more patients use "slimming pills"?
Deinfeld presented the results at the European Congress on Obesity (European Congress on Obesity) in Venice. The result means that millions of people may benefit from taking the drug.
"the biggest problem is the cost of health economics, that is, the cost of taking early action as people move towards future diseases," he said. This will be a clear case of doing some upstream work for obesity management. "
Deanfield believes that the results show that the benefits of Wegovy for the heart are not just the result of weight loss. He is not sure what the exact cause is, but he thinks one of the reasons may be reduced inflammation.
"when you look not only at how much people eat, but also at what they eat, you will find that their diet has completely changed," he said. When you take these drugs, there are all kinds of subtle changes that may have an impact on the results, which we were not aware of before. "
Martin Holst Langer (Martin Holst Lange), head of research at Novo Nord, believes that the main drivers of this benefit are weight loss, anti-inflammation and lower blood pressure. But the drugmaker is also studying other factors, including effects on specific proteins. "We have other analyses that show that [weight loss] does make sense, but it doesn't mean everything," Langer said. "
Donna Ryan, a professor emeritus at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center (Pennington Biomedical Research Center) in Louisiana, helped lead the trial.
He said that unlike previous Wegovy weight loss studies, doctors who conducted the Select trial had more leeway to do experiments, such as allowing patients to continue taking lower doses of drugs or suspending treatment if side effects occurred, which better reflected the real treatment scenario.