Study results show that the diet drug Wegovy has a major additional benefit

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Study finds cardiovascular disease risk decreased by 18% over 10 years in people followed in study Andres AcostaAssociate Professor of Medicine at the Mayo Clinic. Researchers used a standardized heart risk survey to study about 100 people, mostly white women, who took Wegovy over the course of a year at US clinic sites.

The study took place in the real world and not in a clinical trial, meaning there was no control group, so the researchers couldn’t say for sure if the improvement was due to Wegovy, commonly known as semaglutide, or other factors could have played a role. But the result is a positive sign as doctors await the results of a larger, more rigorous study being conducted by Novo, Acosta said in an interview.

The results are “a great sign that hopefully the ongoing Select trials of all-cause cardiovascular mortality will be successful,” Acosta said in an interview using the assign name to Novo’s study. “But we have to wait for these studies.” He presented the results European Congress on Obesity in Dublin.

The larger study looks at 17,500 patients with obesity and a history of cardiovascular disease. The results should be available this summer.

However much smaller Mayo Clinic Although the study wasn’t randomized, the authors observed positive effects on blood pressure, blood sugar levels, and liver function, as well as reduced use of other medications, they said Grace O’MalleyHead of the Obesity Research and Care Group at Ireland’s RCSI University of Medicine and Health Science, who was not involved in the study.

Uncontrollable vomiting

Hearing about “results other than just body weight alone” is crucial. O’Malley said, referring to the frequency of side effects. “Access to obesity drugs should be protected for those with obesity-related complications and not used to alter height for aesthetic reasons.”

The Mayo Clinic team also looked at patients’ weight loss and side effects. In about 300 patients followed by the group, the average weight loss was about 13% of body weight, reflecting observations in randomized clinical trials. About half experienced side effects, mostly nausea, but also diarrhea, abdominal pain and constipation.

According to Acosta, up to 5% of Wegovy patients required hospitalization or emergency room visits due to serious side effects, a higher number than observed in clinical trials. The hospital visits were because the patients were dehydrated due to uncontrollable nausea and vomiting, he said. This is a sign doctors need to monitor patients closely as weight loss drugs are prescribed more frequently.

The real study reflected the supply shortages faced by patients with obesity. Doctors at the clinic had prescribed the drug for about 1,000 people, but only about 300 were able to start taking it, Acosta said. Patients had difficulty accessing the drug due to shortages and lack of insurance coverage.