Semaglutide, the ingredient in jabs like Ozempic and its fat-busting cousin Wegovy, can reduce the risk of heart failure events and cardiovascular death by nearly a third, research suggests.
Australian and international researchers analysed health data from 3,533 patients with diabetes taking the jab during one of its previous clinical trials. Half of patients got the drug while the other half received a placebo.
Tracking the patients for three-and-a-half years afterwards they found those taking semaglutide in the experiment could have up to 27 per cent reduced risk of heart failure and a 29 per cent reduced risk of death.
The authors say this points to how the drug may be working to benefit people with obesity-related heart failure.
However, they said the exact mechanism of how the drug was actually working to decrease risk of heart failure and death, were still ‘not fully understood’.
Researchers found those taking semaglutide in the experiment could have up to 27 per cent reduced risk of heart failure and a 29 per cent reduced risk of death.
They theorised semaglutide’s apparent protective effect might be partly a consequence of people on the drug losing weight.
But they added the drug likely has some other, as yet not understood, direct effect on people’s cardiovascular health.
The results, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, are the latest to find semaglutide could have benefits to heart health outcomes.
Such results prompted UK drug chiefs to approve the use of semaglutide, to prevent heart attacks and strokes in patents who are overweight earlier this year.
That decision comes after scientists hailed the results of a trial which, earlier this year, showed patients on the medications slashed their chance of suffering these health problems by up to a fifth and called for their wider application.
UK regulator Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said at the time that the weekly jabs should now be offered to obese and overweight adults with cardiovascular disease as a ‘preventative treatment’.
It could open the door to millions of more Brits getting the fat-busting jabs.
The extension of the conditions that semaglutide can be prescribed for in Britain only applies to Wegovy, the formulation of the drug for weight-loss patients rather than Ozempic which remains specifically for diabetes.
Cardiovascular disease accounts for about a quarter of all deaths in UK, equivalent to 170,000 deaths a year or 480 each day.
The MHRA said conditions for being given Wegovy in these circumstances include having a body-mass-index of 27 or more, a reading which means someone is overweight, and established cardiovascular disease.
Currently people in the UK can only get Wegovy on the NHS if they have at least a BMI of 30 and health condition related to their weight such as high blood pressure.
The MHRA decision doesn’t mean the NHS will prescribe Wegovy on this new basis straight away.
A separate body, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence I(NICE), must assess using Wegovy like this is cost-effective use of taxpayer funds.
NICE told MailOnline they expect to publish the results of that appraisal next summer.
Ozempic and Wegovy are hormone mimicking jabs that trick the body into feeling full, helping people lose weight.
Losing weight already helps reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes however, the reduction in risk observed in the clinical was also evident among patients who didn’t lose weight.
This suggests the drugs target an underlying biological mechanism that reduces the risk of such events.
Doctors believe this could be due to mechanisms such as improvements to blood sugar, blood pressure or inflammation, as well as direct effects on the heart muscle and blood vessels.
Wegovy and Ozempic work by triggering the body to produce a hormone called GLP-1 that is released naturally from the intestines after meals
While semaglutide based drugs have been linked to a host of benefits, they, like any medication, carry side effects that vary in severity and frequency.
The most common of these are gastrointestinal disorders including nausea, diarrhoea, constipation and vomiting.
But other more bizarre symptoms, such as hair loss, have also been reported among some patients.
Ministers in Britain have previously planned to dole the drug to millions of overweight Brits to trim both the country’s bulging benefits bill from sick Brits taking time off work and the expanding cost of treating excess flab to the NHS.
Despite the hormone mimicking jabs being designed to help overweight patients become healthier there have also been growing concerns about the number of normal weight and underweight patients taking them for cosmetic reasons.
Some have even needed A&E care after taking jabs in a bid to become ‘beach body ready’.
Young women in particular are believed to be obtaining Wegovy via online pharmacies, who offer them at between £150 to £200 ($200-$250) per month, after providing false information about their appearance and health.
In some cases, people taking the jabs without legitimate medical cause are thought to be doing so as a result of eating disorders.
Spiking global demand for the jabs, including among those taking it for cosmetic reasons, has led to some diabetes patients struggling to access supplies.
It has also led to pharma giant Novo Nordisk, which makes Ozempic and Wegovy, to enjoy a massive boom in profits.
Earlier this year the Danish firm revealed it was making £32million per day, as countries grappling with the financial cost of flab fight to get their hands on the jabs.
Analysis suggests that combined sales of the company’s Ozempic and Wegovy brands generated it £20.5 billion this year.