There's a lot of talk about the diabetes and weight loss drug semaglutide — sold under the brand names Ozempic and Wegovy — being a "miracle" drug, as researchers keep finding health benefits that exceed its originally intended capabilities.
Now, a series of new studies show that people who took semaglutide died at a lower rate from all causes — which, some scientists are now suggesting, could be a sign that the drug actually combats aging itself.
"Semaglutide has far-reaching benefits beyond what we initially imagined," Harlan Krumholz of the Yale School of Medicine said Friday at the European Society of Cardiology Conference 2024, as quoted by the 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 aging process."
The studies were conducted as part of the Select trial in the US, which in all followed more than 17,600 people, 45 years of age and older, who were obese or overweight and had cardiovascular disease, but did not have diabetes. Over the course of more than three years, each of these subjects were given semaglutide or a placebo.
The results were stark. The patients who took semaglutide died at a 19 percent lower rate from all causes compared to the placebo group, the studies found, including from infections and cardiovascular issues. Deaths from COVID-19, for example, were reduced by 33 percent.
Semaglutide is a GLP-1 agonist, meaning it mimics the GLP-1 hormone that manages your body's production of insulin. This means that it's effective at managing blood sugar levels, but because the hormone affects your brain's perception of satiety, it can also be used to suppress your appetite and change the way your body processes food.
The drug has blown up as a weight loss treatment, but simultaneously garnered a reputation for treating a host of ailments beyond its officially prescribed uses. Some patients have found themselves cured of their drinking and smoking habits. Meanwhile, studies have linked semaglutide with a lower risk of dementia and have shown that it can halt diabetic kidney disease. It's also been approved to lower the risk of heart disease.
These latest studies further reify the drug's versatility and far-reaching impacts.
"The robust reduction in non-cardiovascular death, and particularly infections deaths, was surprising," Benjamin Scirica, lead author of one of the Select studies, told 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."
To be sure, some of the glowing press around Ozempic can be a little breathless, and some studies have suggested troubling side effects, such as a potential link to suicidal ideation. But these are tenuous or disputed — and so far, most of the evidence seems to suggest that semaglutide is delivering on its hype.
More on Ozempic: New Study Finds Wegovy Reduces COVID Death Risk By 33 Percent
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