Recent studies presented at a conference of cardiologists in London suggest that drugs normally used for weight loss reduce the risk of death in obese or overweight people suffering from cardiovascular disease.
Some weight loss drugs may slow aging. Archive photo
At the European Society of Cardiology Conference in London last week, medical specialists presented several reports that weight-loss drugs could revolutionize medicine by slowing the aging process, allowing people to live longer. much and enjoy better health, writes The Guardian.
To date, research has already been published showing that semaglutide (also known by the trade names Wegovy and Ozempic) reduces the risk of death in obese or overweight people with cardiovascular disease. But recent studies have discovered that Ozempic has other beneficial health effects, apart from those for which it was originally designed. The researchers say that the death rate, from all causes, not just cardiovascular causes, decreased among people who took this drug.
“Semaglutide has major benefits beyond what we originally imagined. It’s not just about preventing heart attacks. It wouldn’t surprise me that improving people’s health in this way actually slows down the aging process,” said Professor Harlan Krumholz of the Yale School of Medicine.
One of the studies presented at the conference looked at 17,604 people aged 45 or older who were overweight or obese and had established cardiovascular disease but no diabetes. Patients received semaglutide or placebo and were followed for more than three years. 833 of the participants died during the study, of which 58% from cardiovascular causes and 42% from other causes, with infections being the most common cause of death in the latter group.
However, it was found that those who took semaglutide were less likely to die from infections than those in the placebo group, and they also consistently had a lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease.
“The considerable reduction in non-cardiovascular deaths and especially deaths from infections was surprising,” said Benjamin Scirica, a professor at Harvard and lead author of one of the studies. “These findings reinforce that overweight and obesity increase the risk of death from many etiologies that can be modified with therapies such as semaglutide,” he also said.
