Ozempic ‘halves severe heart failure symptoms’
MIRACLE diabetes jab Ozempic has been hailed as ‘a paradigm shift’ in the battle against deadly heart failure.
A trial has found that patients given semaglutide – the active ingredient in Ozempic – were half as likely to suffer severe symptoms of the condition, including breathlessness and fatigue.
Heart failure is an incurable long-term condition that causes the heart to stop pumping effectively. It affects about one million Britons which often leaves them housebound and needing regular hospital treatment – and one in five patients do not survive longer than a year from diagnosis.
Semaglutide was originally developed as a diabetes treatment, but in recent years has become one of the world’s most in-demand weight-loss drugs after it was shown to dramatically suppress appetite, with a host of celebrities, including Elon Musk and Boris Johnson, admitting to taking it in a bid to slim down.
The breakthrough in its use as a treatment for heart failure was announced at the American College of Cardiology conference in Atlanta yesterday.
The trial involved diabetes patients, who are four times more likely to develop heart failure. However, experts hope that all heart failure patients might one day benefit from taking it.
‘Heart failure leaves patients unable to do everyday activities, such as getting dressed and leaving the house, due to the debilitating symptoms,’ Dr Mikhail Kosiborod, a cardiologist based in Kansas City and the study’s author, told The Mail on Sunday.
‘We have found that semaglutide is significantly more effective at combating these symptoms than any other treatment. This represents a paradigm shift for heart failure patients.’
More than 4.3million people in the UK have diabetes, a condition that causes blood sugar levels to become too high. The majority of these have type 2 diabetes, which is usually triggered by obesity. Over time, dangerously high blood sugar levels can cause a raft of health issues, including blindness and kidney failure, while about a fifth of patients will develop heart failure.
The trial included around 600 patients with type 2 diabetes and heart failure. Half were given a weekly 2.4mg jab of semaglutide for a year while the others were given a placebo.
After 12 months, those taking semaglutide were roughly half as likely to have experienced symptoms of heart failure, lost significantly more weight and were exercising more frequently.
There were also fewer deaths among those taking semaglutide, though experts say more research is needed to confirm this link.
Naveed Sattar, professor of cardiometabolic medicine at the University of Glasgow, said: ‘Until now, semaglutide has been classed as a diabetes and weightloss drug, but in the next year-anda-half I would expect that NHS cardiologists will begin prescribing it as a result of these findings.’