A New Hope for Heart Failure Appears
The weight-loss medication Wegovy (semaglutide) and its diabetes-focused counterpart, Ozempic, have already revolutionized the treatment of obesity and diabetes, with both drugs experiencing a surge in sales.
Now, according to a recent study presented at the annual meeting of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) in Amsterdam, injected Wegovy could potentially provide substantial benefits for patients grappling with heart failure.
Dr. Mikhail Kosiborod, the lead author of the study from Saint Luke’s Mid-America Heart Institute in Kansas City, revealed that treatment with this drug resulted in significant enhancements in symptoms, physical capabilities, and exercise capacity compared to a placebo.
In the year-long trial, obese heart failure patients who received Wegovy also exhibited greater weight loss and fewer serious adverse events when contrasted with those on a placebo, as revealed by the study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).
The study focused on a subgroup of patients suffering from “heart failure with preserved ejection fraction,” a condition that affects roughly half of all heart failure patients. Ejection fraction measures the heart’s ability to pump oxygen-rich blood into the body. A low ejection fraction indicates impaired pumping ability, but some heart failure patients maintain a healthy range of pumping ability, known as preserved ejection fraction.
Nonetheless, heart failure remains a potentially deadly ailment, with patients experiencing symptoms like breathlessness, swelling, and fatigue during movement, which can significantly diminish their quality of life.
Given the often intertwined nature of obesity and heart failure, Dr. Kosiborod’s team investigated whether Wegovy could benefit patients dealing with both conditions. The study, funded by Novo Nordisk, the manufacturer of Wegovy, enrolled 529 patients from North America and around the world. All participants had heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, a BMI of 30 or higher (indicative of obesity), and a decline in function as measured by two standard tests. Slightly over half of the participants were female, with an average age of 69.
Patients received weekly injections of either Wegovy (semaglutide 2.4 milligrams) or a placebo, and their progress was monitored for one year.
One significant difference between the two groups was weight loss: Wegovy recipients experienced an average weight reduction of 13.3% after one year, while those on the placebo saw only a 2.6% decline.
Wegovy also led to improvements in heart failure symptoms. According to the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire Clinical Summary Score, which employs a 100-point scale to measure health status (with 100 being “excellent health status” and 0 to 25 indicating “very poor” health), patients taking Wegovy experienced an average improvement of 16.6 points in their scores, compared to 8.7 points for those on the placebo.
Additionally, patients on Wegovy demonstrated significant enhancements in their performance on the Six-Minute Walk Test compared to those on the placebo.
Furthermore, the Wegovy group experienced markedly fewer “serious adverse events,” such as emergency room visits or hospitalizations, than the placebo group.
One of the key mechanisms through which Wegovy appears to assist these patients is weight loss, which addresses the underlying “metabolic disease” contributing to heart failure, as noted by Dr. Yigal Pinto, a cardiology professor at Amsterdam University Medical Centers in the Netherlands. However, Pinto cautioned that the trial was relatively small and emphasized the need for more extensive data to precisely understand how Wegovy benefits the heart.
Nevertheless, Pinto characterized these new findings as “encouraging” and suggested that they offer a potentially valuable additional option for these patients.
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