The Mirror attended the world’s biggest heart conference in Madrid and heard how weight loss injections cut heart patients’ risk of being hospitalised or dying early
Weight loss drugs can slash the risk of heart failure and death, according to the largest study of its kind.
The appetite-suppressing jabs cut heart patients’ risk of being hospitalised or dying prematurely from any cause by 58%. As well as helping patients lose up to a fifth of their body weight – which is good for heart health – there is emerging evidence that the jabs also lower harmful inflammation. The study of 90,000 US heart failure patients, presented at the world’s largest heart conference in Madrid, means they could be given to millions to help them stay out of hospital and live longer.
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Dr Carlos Aguiar, vice-president of the European Society of Cardiology and a world renowned expert in heart failure, who was not involved with the study, welcomed the findings.
He said: “We thought that we actually might not really find a treatment that would work well for a significant proportion of these patients, and what’s been a good surprise is that these drugs that are working through weight loss, but possibly through other effects that go beyond weight loss, are potentially reducing the rates of hospitalisation and mortality in patients with heart failure.”
Weight loss drugs mimic the glucagon-like peptide (GLP) 1 hormone, which makes people feel full, and were initially developed to treat diabetes. In recent years mounting evidence has emerged suggesting they might help a range of conditions from depression to dementia. However, how they might do this is still little understood.
The major study, presented at the European Society of Cardiology annual conference in Madrid, looked at 90,000 heart failure patients who were obese and had type 2 diabetes. US researchers from Mass General Brigham, a nonprofit network of doctors and hospitals headquartered in Boston, tracked patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HfpEF), the most common form of the condition.
The results showed that those taking the weight loss drug semaglutide were 42% less likely to end up in hospital or die prematurely. The weight loss drug tirzepatide, brand name Mounjaro, cut the risk by 58%.
Author Dr Nils Krüger, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said: “Despite the widespread morbidity and mortality burden of HFpEF, current treatment options are limited. Both semaglutide and tirzepatide are well-known for their effects on weight loss and blood sugar control, but our study suggests they may also offer substantial benefits to patients with obesity and type 2 diabetes by reducing adverse heart failure outcomes.”
The findings were presented simultaneously at the conference in Madrid and published in JAMA, the journal of the American Medical Association. It compared the one-year risk of hospitalisation or death in new users of each weight loss drug to the risk of those outcomes in a placebo group of patients taking sitagliptin, a diabetes drug known to have no impact on HfpEF.
Previous studies have suggested that weight loss drugs may improve heart failure symptoms, but their effect on important outcomes like hospitalization and death has never been evaluated in large populations until now.
Consultant cardiologist Dr Sonya Babu-Narayan, clinical director at the British Heart Foundation, said: “These data add to the growing body of evidence supporting a role for weight loss drugs for patients living with both heart failure and obesity, to reduce hospital admissions and death.
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“It’s crucial that eligible heart failure patients have the opportunity to be considered for these therapies, alongside other evidence-based heart failure medicines.
“If you have been prescribed these medicines by your doctor, there are steps you can take to maintain the benefits long into the future. This includes adding more regular exercise, including some resistance training, into your routine and working towards as healthy and nutritious diet as possible.
“But these drugs don’t suit everyone. It’s important to seek medical advice if you are anxious about side effects, or if you experience sudden and severe pain in your abdomen while using weight loss drugs.”
In May, a trial found that people taking semaglutide had a 20% lower risk of heart attack, stroke or death due to cardiovascular disease. The University College London study also found semaglutide brought about cardiovascular benefits, regardless of someone’s starting weight or the amount of weight that they had lost.