--- title: "Wegovy Approved to Cut Heart Disease and Stroke Risk" description: "The maker of Wegovy has been granted FDA approval to sell its wares to help cut the risk of heart attack, heart disease, and stroke." date: "2024-03-10" modified: "2024-03-10" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/wegovy-approved-heart-disease-stroke" categories: - "Health & Medicine" - "Medical" - "RX and Medicine" tags: - "fda" - "heart disease" - "semaglutide" - "wegovy" --- # Wegovy Approved to Cut Heart Disease and Stroke Risk ![The maker of Wegovy has been granted FDA approval to sell its wares to help cut the risk of heart attack, heart disease, and stroke.]() *An Ozempic needle injection pen is seen in this illustration photo in Warsaw, Poland on 03 September, 2023. (Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images) \Image: Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images\* The maker of Ozempic and Wegovy has been granted government approval to sell its wares to help cut the risk of heart attack, heart disease, and stroke — a move that could help expand insurance coverage to the highly sought-after drugs. In a [press release](), the Food and Drug Administration announced that Novo Nordisk, the Danish company behind the outrageously popular weight loss injectables, has been granted the first-ever stamp of approval for heart health specifically geared towards people who are overweight or obese. "Wegovy is now the first weight loss medication to also be approved to help prevent life-threatening cardiovascular events in adults with cardiovascular disease and either obesity or overweight," John Sharretts, the FDA's diabetes and obesity czar, said in the press release. "This patient population has a higher risk of cardiovascular death, heart attack and stroke. Providing a treatment option that is proven to lower this cardiovascular risk is a major advance for public health." Last August, [Novo announced]() that semaglutide, the active ingredient in both Wegovy and Ozempic, had showed significant heart health benefits in a large-scale human trial. Specifically, the 2.4 milligram dosage, which is what's used in Wegovy as compared to the 1 mg version used for Ozempic, showed a [link with lowered heart disease risk](). This beneficial usage of the drug, which belongs to a class of medicine known as [GLP-1 agonists]() that mimics the feeling of fullness in the stomach, is just the latest in a [growing]() list of [positive semaglutide side effects]() — a list that is, unfortunately, tempered with a rap sheet of [mild-to-severe]() [issues]() it's [been linked]() with. Due to semaglutide's incredible boom in popularity in the nearly three years since the [FDA approved]() the higher-dose Wegovy injectable as a weight loss treatment, it's been flying off the shelves even as insurers demonstrate a reticence to shell out for it, leading some folks to either go without or seek unregulated and often dangerous [grey-market alternatives](). In an [interview with *NPR*](), cardiologist Martha Gulati of Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Medical Center estimated that up to 70 percent of her patients could be eligible for the medication — which as of now is [still not covered]() by many [insurance companies](). "The hope," Gulati said, "is that insurers will start understanding that this is not a vanity drug." **More on semaglutide benefits:** [*Semaglutide Can Cut Diabetic Kidney Disease Progression*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()