Wegovy Is Good for Your Heart: Study 

Danish pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk has revealed data showing its blockbuster weight loss drugs can also reduce risk of a heart attack or stroke.

The data, published Friday in the New England Journal of Medicine, comes after Novo teased new data on its drug related to heart health earlier this month. In response to the initial announcement, the company’s stock price ended up reaching a record high. 

The study, funded by the drug’s manufacturer, found that a 2.4-milligram weekly dose of semaglutide, sold as Wegovy for weight loss and Ozempic to treat type 2 diabetes, alongside a diet and exercise regimen improved heart health twice as much as just a placebo. Novo recruited 529 people with a body mass index of 30 or higher — the classification for obesity — for the study.

Researchers used change in body weight over the 52 week period, combined with results from the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire clinical summary score to gauge increases in heart health. The questionnaire is a 100 point scale that judges a person’s overall heart health, with a higher score indicating a better cardiovascular state.

Participants that received semaglutide saw their score increase by nearly 17 points, compared to an increase of just nine points among the placebo group. 

Researchers found that participants with heart failure with preserved ejection and obesity semaglutide treatment led to "larger reductions in symptoms and physical limitations, greater improvements in exercise function and greater weight loss than placebo." 

In a separate study from earlier in August, the Danish manufacturer's drug Wegovy found that the likelihood for patients with heart disease to have a stroke or heart attack reduced by 20% when they took 2.4 milligrams of the drug. This data is pending peer review and publication in a medical journal.