Wegobee, one of the leading new obesity drugs, relieves symptoms and improves quality of life in patients with obesity and a common type of heart failure, study funded by the drug’s maker finds And beyond weight loss, the evidence that this drug may produce health benefits has further strengthened.
The study was published on Friday. New England Journal of MedicineThey evaluated the drug in people with a condition known as ejection fraction preservation, in which the heart beats normally but loses the flexibility it needs to fill with blood. This condition accounts for about half of all heart failure cases.
Patients who received Wegovy in the trial showed greater improvement in strength and symptoms such as fatigue and shortness of breath than those who received placebo. The study enrolled 529 participants, was conducted over a one-year period, and did not aim to assess cardiac emergencies. Only one patient was found to require hospitalization or urgent care for heart failure.
The drug showed greater relief of heart failure symptoms than other treatments, the study said.
“There are so many very symptomatic patients, so few, if any, treatment options, and obesity is so prevalent,” says Dr. Mikhail Kosiborod, a cardiologist at St. Luke’s Central American Heart Institute. . He was the principal investigator for Kansas City and the study, and also serves as an advisor to Nordisk, the makers of Wegovy. “It would be a true paradigm shift.”
Cardiologists once viewed obesity simply as a comorbidity with heart failure. But new research has strengthened the evidence that obesity is a major factor in the disease.
“This is a proof of concept that obesity needs to be treated as an underlying cause of heart failure in many of these heart failure patients, where obesity actually causes it, and should be targeted by therapeutic strategies. said Dr. Kosiborod. He said.
Another study evaluating the drug in heart failure patients with obesity and diabetes will be completed this year. If this study also yields encouraging results, Novo Nordisk said it could seek a formal recommendation for the drug to treat heart failure.
Scientists who weren’t involved in the trial will study the drug over time in more patients so researchers can determine if it actually reduces the likelihood of hospitalization and death. said it was important. However, given the physical limitations and severity of symptoms in patients with this type of heart failure, the improvement with these measures alone is noteworthy, they said.
On a 100-point scale for quality of life and physical performance, the study found that patients who received Wegovy improved their symptoms by about 8 points more than those who received a placebo. Wegovy users also showed significant improvement in the 6-minute walking test.
“This is a short-term study, so I can’t say much about long-term sustained effects, but I think the size of the effect is impressive when compared to what other interventions have shown in the same population. ,” said Dr. Daniel Drucker. A senior scientist at the Lunenfeld Tanenbaum Institute at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, where he studies new drugs. Mr. Novo received a commission from Nordisk, but was not involved in the case.
Wegobee and Ozempic, another version of the same drug for diabetics, quickly became popular due to their remarkable weight-loss benefits, and Novo Nordisk is struggling to keep up with the growing demand. .
But the latest study builds on other recent evidence that the drug does more than just lose weight.
For example, the company announced earlier this month that Wegovy reduced the risk of heart complications by 20 percent in various patient populations in a large trial, a result that will persuade more insurers to cover the new weight-loss drug. regarded as extremely important. . Researchers are waiting for companies to release the underlying data to the study to explore the main results.
“Obesity is associated with 200 other obesity-related conditions,” says Dr. Ania Jastrebov, an endocrinologist at Yale University, an expert in obesity medicine, and a consultant to an anti-obesity drug maker. “He treats one disease and can affect the health of so many patients in many different ways. This is another great example.”
Experts believe that the weight loss itself probably explained some of the improvements in the patients’ heart health. However, more research is needed to determine exactly how much weight loss played and how other factors played a role.
For example, a heart failure study released Friday found that Wigobee may have reduced inflammation. Patients taking the drug also had lower levels of key markers of cardiac congestion, another sign that the drug is doing something that might affect heart failure. is.
“We need to understand it even deeper,” said Dr. Kosiborod.