Weight-loss drugs Wegovy and Ozempic Affect Your Heart : A Doctor Explains

Recently two articles appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine discussing the cardiovascular benefits of taking either wovi or OIC for weight loss but are these truly worth it are these benefits outweighing the risk of taking these medication well let's see and find out hi I'm Dr MSA wovi which is semaglutide was FDA approved for weight loss the semaglutide is a peptide that mimics another peptide that's released 

 From your intestine after a meal and it basically tells your brain that you've had enough and your appetite decreases when you take wovi you're artificially doing that Therefore your appetite suppressed and you eat less and lose weight it's become such a popular drug that it's almost impossible to find fortunately the FDA had also approved OIC except this was not approved for weight loss it was approved to control type 2 non-insulin dependent 

 Diabetes however being the same medication semaglutide more people are using OIC for weight loss than they are for the treatment of diabetes these two studies were funded by Novo nordis the same company that makes both of these medications and they did not want to test what it does for weight loss nor did they want to test what it's doing for diabetes they were specifically looking to see if the were any other hidden benefits of these two medications 

 In the first study which started in 2018 so was way before the OIC weight loss craze and it ended in 2021 had over 17,000 subjects from 41 countries these subjects ranged in age from 45 to 65 were all overweight to obese but none of them had diabetes as the three years went on they followed these people and they found an astonishing 20% reduction in major cardiovascular events these events could have included sudden death the 

 Development of aosc orotic coronary artery disease and congestive heart failure they also noted as an aside that the average subject lost approximately 13% of their overall body weight the second study although smaller had some very interesting results it was published in the New England Journal as semaglutide in patients with heart failure with a preserved ejection fraction and obesity so it was very specific a very specific type of 

 Congestive heart failure one that had a normal ejection fraction but what is this ejection fraction when the ventricles squeeze will go into syy we squeeze out that volume of blood that's in there you might might think it squeezes everything out it doesn't under the best conditions in a young person it squeezes out about 75% leaving 25% of the blood behind when you start losing your rejection fraction you start to get signs of congestive 

 Heart failure the signs of congestive heart failure are a shortness of breath with exertion development of fluid in the lower extremities sometimes development of fluid in the lung and an overall lack of circulation to the organs of the body that's usually all secondary to congestive heart failure just like the word says the heart is congested it's not getting its blood out and it's usually displayed in a lower ejection fraction however in this study 

 These people had a normal ejection fraction but they still had all the signs of congestive heart failure they were also all obese they had a body mass index greater than 30 some were morbidly obese the study only lasted a year and only had 529 subjects but it was very interesting one group received 2.4 mg of semaglutide per week the other Placebo they were given a questionnaire at the end simply regarding their cardiac health how do they feel how far can you 

 Walk within 6 minutes how far can you go before you get short of breath how is your overall health they also measured the C reactive protein C reactive protein is a protein made in the liver and is usually a sign of General inflammation the theory being is if you have a high C reactive protein you have inflammation along your coronary arteries that could attract plaque and thus give you an accelerated cardiovascular illness when the study 

 Was done they compared the semaglutide group to the placebo group they found the semaglutide group lost 133% of their body weight versus only about 2.7% to the placebo group they found that the semaglutide group were able to walk 21 M further than they could before they started about 63 ft versus the other group was really only able to go about 1.2 M more that's very interesting they also found the C reactive protein dropped 

 43% in the semaglutide group versus only 7% in the placebo group so now let's really break this down and see is it worth these benefits you're going to have to take this medication for the rest of your life Studies have already shown that once you stop the weight comes right back you're also going to have to put out a lot of out-of-pocket expense for the most part it's going to cost approximately $1,000 a month also there are some risks pancreatitis 

 Thyroid carcinoma people have gotten immobility of their bowel and started vomiting and that immobility seems to last quite a while even after they stop taking the medication so there are some risks involved it's not safe and simple now why do I think these patients got better I think they got better from the weight loss they lost the weight their heart is working less their circulation is better their exercise tolerance is better so in my personal 

 Opinion I think You' be best off to get a good lifestyle change a diet and exercise program that you could live with and do longterm and get the weight off that way no it's not going to be nearly as fast as taking the weight off with wovi or OIC but it's going to be something that could be lifelong and healthy I hope you learned something with this I hope you found these studies as interesting as I did and have a good 

 Day