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Novo NordiskThe company’s blockbuster diabetes drug Ozempic may reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, according to a study released Thursday, suggesting it has the potential to delay or prevent the condition of memory loss.
Ozempic’s active ingredient, semaglutide, reduced the risk of a first Alzheimer’s diagnosis by 40% to 70% in people with type 2 diabetes compared with seven other diabetes drugs. These include insulin and older so-called GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic, the study said.
Alzheimer’s disease is usually diagnosed in: mild dementia stagewhen a person has serious problems with their memory and thinking. almost 7 million Americans have this condition, fifth leading cause of death For adults 65 and older, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. But by 2050, the number of Alzheimer’s patients in the United States is expected to increase to nearly 13 million.
There is no cure for Alzheimer’s disease; only medications can be used to treat symptoms of the disease or slow its progression in the early stages. But potential preventive treatments such as semaglutide may be more useful, said Dr. Rong Xu, a professor of biomedical informatics at Case Western Reserve University and lead study co-author.
That’s because by the time many patients are diagnosed with the disease, “it’s often too late to treat it,” Xu told CNBC. She added that many risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease, such as obesity, diabetes and smoking, are preventable and “modifiable.”
These results provide further evidence that GLP-1, a popular class of obesity and diabetes drugs, may provide health benefits in addition to promoting weight loss and regulating blood sugar. These include Ozempic, Novo Nordisk’s weight-loss injection Wegovy and products from Eli Lilly and Company It works slightly differently.
Novo Nordisk and rival Eli Lilly and Company have been studying their drugs as potential treatments for chronic conditions such as sleep apnea and fatty liver disease. Novo Nordisk, which did not fund the new Case Western study, is also examining semaglutide in a late-stage study in Alzheimer’s patients.
The new Case Western study released Thursday builds on other research released in July involving liraglutide, a once-daily diabetes and obesity drug marketed by Novo Nordisk under the brand names Saxenda and Victoza. Selling the drug. In the study of liraglutide, data from a mid-stage trial found that the drug may slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease by protecting patients’ brains.
In the study released Thursday, researchers at Case Western Reserve University analyzed three years of electronic records from nearly 1 million U.S. patients with diabetes who had not previously been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. This research was funded in part by the National Institutes of Health.
The study compared semaglutide to seven different diabetes medications, including insulin and a drug called metformin. It also includes other GLP-1s, such as liraglutide and a drug called dulaglutide made by Eli Lilly and Company.
Studies have shown that semaglutide reduces the risk of a first diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease by about 70% compared with insulin, nearly 60% compared with metformin, and 40% compared with other GLP-1s. Semaglutide was also associated with significantly lower prescriptions of Alzheimer’s-related drugs, the study said.
Patients in the trial saw similar reductions in risk regardless of gender, age and whether they had obesity.
But the study has limitations because it relied on data from electronic health records. Xu calls for more research, particularly clinical trials that randomly assign patients to receive semaglutide or other treatments, to confirm the extent to which Ozempic and other GLP-1s can help prevent or delay Alzheimer’s disease.
Xu and the research team also plan to study whether GLP-1 can prevent Alzheimer’s disease in obese patients, but they want to wait a year or two, longer for GLP-1 approved for weight loss, to have more patient data. for them to analyze. Wegovy was approved in the U.S. in 2021, while Eli Lilly and Co’s weight-loss injection Zepbound only hit the market last fall.
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