New trial outcomes present the weight-loss remedy Wegovy may also minimize coronary heart assault and stroke dangers, in line with the drug’s maker.
SARAH MCCAMMON, HOST:
The maker of Wegovy is claiming the burden loss drug may also minimize the danger of coronary heart assaults and strokes. NPR’s Allison Aubrey studies.
ALLISON AUBREY, BYLINE: It is no secret that Wegovy, like its counterpart Ozempic, is in excessive demand. These medicine are very efficient at serving to folks management urge for food and handle weight. Now, Novo Nordisk, the maker of Wegovy, has outcomes from a five-year examine that present folks with weight problems or who’re chubby that take the drug have a few 20% lowered threat of getting a significant cardiac occasion, comparable to a coronary heart assault or stroke. Here is doctor Steven Nissen, a heart specialist on the Cleveland Clinic who was not concerned within the examine.
STEVEN NISSEN: This can be a very promising consequence, however how promising will rely upon different issues.
AUBREY: The outcomes of the examine, which included about 17,000 adults, haven’t but been printed in a peer-reviewed journal. And Dr. Nissen says key particulars comparable to potential dangers are usually not included within the firm’s press launch. He says the discount in coronary heart assaults and strokes appears very important.
NISSEN: We now know that there’s a profit, and that is nice, however we do not know what the dangers are. And it is all the time about profit versus threat with any drug, and we have to see all of that.
AUBREY: Dr. Nissen is learning the same drug, Mounjaro, in an ongoing medical trial. Dr. Pamela Brandt of Inova Well being System treats sufferers with weight problems and says Wegovy does have some widespread uncomfortable side effects.
PAMELA BRANDT: Individuals really feel full far more shortly however that may additionally result in nausea or a rise in acid reflux disease or feeling simply uncomfortably full.
AUBREY: Uncommon uncomfortable side effects embrace the danger of pancreatitis and, in rodent research, a threat of thyroid tumors. So medical doctors display sufferers for a household historical past of a selected form of thyroid most cancers. The findings of the brand new examine come amid a debate about whether or not Medicare ought to pay for the blockbuster weight reduction medicine. And Dr. Brandt says the brand new analysis exhibits that weight reduction for these sufferers will not be about vainness or appearances. It is about stopping illness.
BRANDT: The entire purpose of treating folks to assist them obtain weight reduction is to make them more healthy. So seeing that they really have a decreased threat of cardiovascular occasions like coronary heart assaults and strokes, that is what’s actually necessary.
AUBREY: Brandt says she seems ahead to seeing all the main points and what could possibly be a landmark examine.
Allison Aubrey, NPR Information.
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