Weight Loss Drug Wegovy Cuts Risk Of Heart Attack, Trial Shows

The weight loss drug Wegovy was shown to reduce the risk of heart attack, stroke, or heart-related death by 20% in what’s being called a landmark clinical trial in people with cardiovascular disease, the first to show a weight loss drug alone can have such protective effects, Meg Tirrell reported for CNN.

Photo Insert: The finding of a 20% reduction in heart risk is higher than many experts had anticipated.

Novo Nordisk studied Wegovy against placebo in addition to standard of care for prevention of major adverse cardiac events in 17,604 adults with heart disease and obesity or who were overweight, but who didn’t have diabetes. It called the five-year trial “Select.”

The finding of a 20% reduction in heart risk is higher than many experts had anticipated.

A similar trial for the type 2 diabetes drug Ozempic, which uses the same ingredient, semaglutide, previously showed it could reduce cardiovascular risk by 26% — but no trial had yet shown a risk reduction in people without diabetes.

“Historically, trials of drugs for weight loss have been very unsuccessful, and some of them have shown harm,” Cleveland Clinic’s Dr. Steven Nissen told CNN Tuesday. “This is an important trial and I think the term ‘landmark’ is appropriate.”

Nissen emphasized that these are just topline results. He emphasized that it’s crucial to see full results presented at a scientific conference and published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Specifically, he noted the news release didn’t discuss adverse events or the specific effects on each measure of heart risk: cardiovascular death, heart attack, and stroke. “That doesn’t mean it’s not a good result,” he said, “it just means we don’t know.”

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