THURSDAY, Sept. 12, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Ozempic and Wegovy can prevent heart problems in overweight and obese people, particularly if they also suffer from kidney disease, a new clinical trial shows.

The drugs’ active ingredient, semaglutide, reduced heart health risk by 20% in heavyset people who took it for more than three years, researchers reported Wednesday at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes annual meeting in Madrid.

The study “found a similar percentage reduction in cardiovascular disease with semaglutide in those with and without poor kidney function,” said lead researcher Helen Colhoun, chair of medical informatics and life course epidemiology with the University of Edinburgh in the U.K.

That’s especially good news for people with kidney troubles, Colhoun explained.

“Because those with poor kidney function have higher background risk of cardiovascular disease, the absolute benefit is greatest in this group,” Colhoun said in a meeting news release. “People with impaired kidney function have increased risks of cardiovascular disease and the results show that semaglutide is safe and effective in reducing this risk substantially.”

Semaglutide mimics the hormone GLP-1, which plays a role in hunger, digestion and insulin control.

For the clinical trial, researchers randomly assigned more than 17,600 overweight or obese people around the world to take either semaglutide or a placebo for an average of 40 months.

The participants had all previously suffered a heart attack or stroke or had peripheral artery disease when they were recruited between 2018 and 2023, researchers said. None of them had diabetes.

Researchers tracked the patients to see whether they suffered a heart attack, stroke or other major heart-related health problem after starting either semaglutide or a placebo.

People taking semaglutide lost more than 9% of their body weight on average, compared to those taking a placebo, researchers found.

Semaglutide was linked to an 18% reduction in heart health problems or death in people with normal kidney function, compared to those on placebo, results show

For people with kidney disease, semaglutide reduced their risk of heart health problems by 31%, and their overall risk of death by 33%.

“The findings add to the growing evidence of the cardiovascular benefits of semaglutide and underscore its important role as a treatment option in the management of cardiovascular and renal health for the growing number of people affected by obesity,” Colhoun said.

However, researchers noted that the results cannot be applied to everyone with kidney disease or failure, because the trial specifically looked at those with existing heart problems prior to receiving semaglutide.

Because these findings were presented at a medical meeting, they should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

Yale Medicine has more on semaglutide and heart health.

SOURCE: European Association for the Study of Diabetes, news release, Sept. 11, 2024