Can injectable weight-loss drugs improve heart health?

Injectable weight-loss medications called semaglutides are helping people with obesity by reducing appetite. But could these drugs also be the next breakthrough in keeping your heart healthy?

The Food and Drug Administration recently approved Wegovy, a brand name of semaglutide, as a secondary prevention medication to reduce risk of serious heart problems.

Could your cardiologist soon be prescribing the weight-loss drug Wegovy to improve your heart health?

“It wasn’t the weight loss necessarily that drove that benefit. It was something that seemed very specific to this semaglutide itself,” says Dr. Meera Shah, a Mayo Clinic endocrinologist.

A study published in November 2023 showed that, in adult patients with obesity who already have cardiovascular disease, Wegovy reduced the risk of heart attack, stroke and cardiovascular death by 20%.

“Which is a very big number, especially when you consider that all of these people were already on very good baseline medications, like a statin and like blood pressure medications, so to see that profound of an impact is pretty significant,” says Dr. Shah.

And it’s why the FDA has approved Wegovy as a medication to lower that cardiovascular risk.

“It has been shown to improve blood pressure, improve function of the cardiac cells, etc., etc. It is many mechanisms that it seems to work through to give you that overall positive benefit,” says Dr. Shah.

It’s a benefit that could help millions of Americans lower their risk of having a serious cardiovascular event.

“I think we are finally seeing something that seems to help with the cardiovascular events but help also with weight loss and help people improve blood glucose control,” says Dr. Shah.

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