Good morning! Novo Nordisk’s blockbuster diabetes drug Ozempic may have more to offer beyond regulating blood sugar and promoting weight loss.
That’s according to a new University of Oxford analysis published last week, which found that Ozempic could lower the risk of dementia and a range of other mental problems compared with other existing treatments for patients with diabetes. What’s more, researchers found that Ozempic cut nicotine dependence in those patients.
Those findings add to the growing list of potential health benefits of Ozempic and other highly popular GLP-1 treatments, such as Novo Nordisk’s weight loss injection Wegovy and drugs from rival Eli Lilly.
Large clinical trials have already shown that semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy, can cut the risk of serious cardiovascular complications and kidney disease. Other studies are examining GLP-1s in patients with sleep apnea and fatty liver disease, among other conditions, and are evaluating whether the drugs can curb addictive behaviors such as alcohol use and even gambling.
Now, let’s dive into the data from the new analysis, published in the Lancet’s eClinicalMedicine journal on Thursday.
The study relied on medical records from more than 100,000 U.S. diabetes patients, including more than 20,000 who were prescribed semaglutide between December 2017 and May 2021.
Researchers compared semaglutide to three other diabetes treatments: Merck’s Januvia, or sitagliptin; Pfizer’s Glucotrol, or glipizide; and Eli Lilly and Boehringer Ingelheim’s Jardiance, or empagliflozin. They compared the risks of 22 neurological and psychiatric outcomes within one year of treatment on the different diabetes drugs.
Overall, Ozempic was associated with a lower risk of cognitive problems and nicotine dependence, according to the researchers.
After a year, patients who took Ozempic had a 48% lower risk of developing dementia than those on Januvia. The risk in Ozempic patients was also 37% lower than those who took Glucotrol and 9% lower than those on Jardiance.
Notably, previous research has determined that diabetes patients are at a greater risk of developing dementia.
Patients who took Ozempic also saw an 18% reduction in nicotine dependence compared to those on Januvia. Nicotine dependence was also 28% lower in Ozempic patients compared to those on Glucotrol and 23% lower than those on Jardiance.
“Our results suggest that semaglutide use could extend beyond managing diabetes, potentially offering unexpected benefits in the treatment and prevention of cognitive decline and substance misuse,” Dr. Riccardo De Giorgi, clinical lecturer at the University of Oxford and lead author of the study, said in a statement.
But the authors emphasized that the analysis is observational. The results need to be replicated in a controlled trial that assigns patients to randomly take Ozempic and the other drugs, according to Dr. Max Taquet, another Oxford clinical lecturer and senior study author.
We’ll continue to watch for future research in this area, so stay tuned for our coverage.
