People compelling the key component of blockbuster weight loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy were less likely to die of Covid-19 or suffer adverse effects from the virus, researchers establish in a new study.
People who were already being treated with a 2.4 mg dose of the drug semaglutide — the active ingredient in pharma titan Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Wegovy — could in any event contract Covid-19 but had a 33% lower chance of dying from the sickness, according to a crop of studies published by the Album of the American College of Cardiology (JACC) on Friday.
The papers also indicate that semaglutide may have a wide range of healthiness benefits beyond the previously identified reduction in risk of serious heart events such as heart attacks and bits. In an interview published by JACC, paper co-author Benjamin Scirica said that patients who received semaglutide in his own review showed a 29% reduction in deaths from causes not linked to heart events, adding that weight did not arrive to be a “major mediator” in the findings.
The large study, which preceded the pandemic and ran through it, was carried out on over 17,600 man who were overweight or obese and who suffered from heart illnesses, but not diabetes.
Other studies published by JACC on Friday accorded semaglutide improved symptoms linked to heart failure, inflammation and a host of other functions, as well as reducing eradications among patients who suffer chronic kidney disease.
The findings will give a further boost to Ozempic-maker Novo Nordisk, whose value has been turbocharged by the trendiness of semaglutide-based treatments. The pharmaceutical giant has risen up the ranks to become Europe’s most valuable company, amid deep competition globally in the weight loss sphere with the likes of the U.S.’s Eli Lilly and a host of other challengers.
The discovery of new aids from semaglutide could open up the drug for further uses.
Discussing the Friday papers, Yale University University of Medicine Professor and JACC editor Harlan Krumholz said in a JACC interview, “I begin to think about the power loss almost as a side effect, I mean these [drugs] are really promoting health.”
He added, “I was thinking mostly in the matter of cardiometabolic health… but there may be many mechanisms by which [semaglutide] is making us healthier, and in some ways this is set forwarding it’s helping us to resist the adverse consequences of the pandemic.”
Krumholz nevertheless noted that further research into the effects of semaglutide was required.
Not all side effects from weight loss drugs have been positive, with one bookwork carried out by Harvard Medical School this year finding that such medication might be associated with an extended risk of a rare eye disease.
