New data suggests treatment with Wegovy offers ‘remarkable’ cardioprotective effects – before significant weight loss occurs.
This week, Danish pharma giant Novo Nordisk announced new data highlighting the early cardiovascular benefits of Wegovy at the European Congress of Obesity. The company presented a secondary analysis from the Phase 3 SELECT trial, which revealed that Wegovy reduced the risk of major adverse cardiovascular events – including cardiovascular death and non-fatal heart attacks – by 37% compared with placebo within the first three months of treatment. Within six months, the risk of death from cardiovascular disease was halved, and the likelihood of hospitalization or urgent care for heart failure or cardiovascular death was reduced by 59%.
Crucially from a longevity perspective, these early protective effects were observed before patients achieved significant weight loss, suggesting that Wegovy’s cardiovascular benefits are not solely attributable to its impact on body weight but may also involve direct effects on cardiovascular physiology.
“Seeing this SELECT secondary data demonstrate that patients experienced MACE risk reduction within three months is remarkable,” said Novo Nordisk’s head of medical Dr Jason Brett.
The SELECT trial, which enrolled over 17,000 adults aged 45 and older with overweight or obesity and established cardiovascular disease but no prior diabetes, had previously demonstrated that Wegovy reduced the risk of adverse cardiovascular events by 20% over 40 months.
“Building on the landmark SELECT trial, that showed that semaglutide 2.4 mg decreased heart disease events in people with overweight or obesity and established cardiovascular disease, in this secondary analysis, there was early reduction in heart disease events observed with semaglutide 2.4 mg prior to what is typically considered significant weight loss,” said the study’s lead author Dr Jorge Plutzky, Director of Preventive Cardiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Since we first suggested back in 2023 that weight loss treatments like Wegovy and Ozmepic had potential to be ‘longevity drugs’, the evidence supporting the broader health impact of semaglutide and other GLP-1 receptor agonists has continued to amass. Beyond cardiovascular protection, growing evidence suggests that semaglutide and related GLP-1 agonists may offer broader benefits against age-related diseases.
Recent research indicates that semaglutide may slow biological aging, as measured by epigenetic biomarkers, by stabilizing the pace of aging and reducing inflammation, while GLP-1 agonists have also shown promise in improving cognitive function, reducing the risk of metabolic liver disease, and even potentially curbing unhealthy behaviors such as alcohol addiction.
