A weight loss drug that may help to prevent heart attacks and strokes could also help overweight people with heart failure, new research suggests.
Previous research showed people with heart disease who are obese or overweight could benefit from taking semaglutide (brand names Wegovy and Ozempic).
The new study suggests that, within this group, it worked just as well for people with heart failure as it did for those without it.
The results follow previous research from the same team, finding that weekly injections of the drug were linked to a 20% drop in major adverse cardiac events (Mace) such as heart attacks and strokes for obese or overweight people who had cardiovascular disease.
According to the findings, taking the weight loss drug was also linked to a reduction in all-causes death in people with heart failure.
Experts say this suggests the drug may have the potential for other, as yet unknown, benefits.
Lead author Professor John Deanfield, of the UCL Institute of Cardiovascular Science, said: “Our previous Select (Semaglutide and Cardiovascular Outcomes trial) analysis showed the benefits of semaglutide for people with cardiovascular disease who had obesity or were overweight,
“This new study finds that, within this group, people with heart failure did just as well as people without in terms of the outcomes we measured.
“This is important as there were concerns that semaglutide might be harmful for people with a type of heart failure known as reduced ejection fraction, where the heart pumps less blood around the body.
“Our findings show that the benefit of semaglutide was similar regardless of heart failure type.”
Heart failure is a long-term condition that tends to get gradually worse over time. It cannot usually be cured, but the symptoms can often be controlled for many years.
Researchers looked at data from 4,286 people – out of a total of 17,605 from the Semaglutide and Cardiovascular Outcomes (Select) trial who were randomly assigned either semaglutide or a dummy drug – who were followed up over an average of more than three years.
They found that the drug was linked to a 28% reduction in major adverse cardiac events – 12.3% in the dummy drug group had such events compared with 9.1% in the semaglutide group.
It was also linked to a 24% reduction in heart disease-related deaths for the subgroup of people with pre-existing heart failure, and a 19% reduction in deaths from any cause.
Exactly how the medication delivers heart benefits is not known, but researchers suggest it may include the drug’s positive impacts on blood sugar, blood pressure, and inflammation, as well as direct effects on the heart muscle and blood vessels.
Writing in The Lancet, the researchers said the reduction in all-causes deaths in all heart failure groups “suggests the potential for other, as yet unknown, benefits”.
– The study was funded by Novo Nordisk, the only company in the USA with FDA-approved products containing semaglutide.
