Ozempic’s Older Sibling Would possibly Sluggish Down Alzheimer’s

An older sibling of the favored diabetes and weight reduction drug semaglutide could assist gradual the development of Alzheimer’s illness. In medical trial information launched this week, UK scientists have discovered proof that liraglutide can scale back mind shrinkage and cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s sufferers. Semaglutide is already being examined out in bigger Section III trials for the neurodegenerative situation.

Liraglutide and related medication mimic the hormone GLP-1, which helps regulate our blood sugar and urge for food. It was accredited in 2010 to deal with sort 2 diabetes; in 2014, it was accredited to deal with weight problems. Folks with poorly managed diabetes are identified to be at larger danger for Alzheimer’s and different types of dementia, whereas some research in animals have suggested that liraglutide can stop the damaging mind adjustments that happen in Alzheimer’s. So scientists on the Imperial Faculty London determined to conduct a double-blinded, randomized, and placebo-controlled trial of liraglutide for Alzheimer’s.

The trial concerned 204 sufferers identified with early Alzheimer’s, half of whom got liraglutide. The drug didn’t seem to considerably change folks’s glucose metabolism within the mind, which was the first measure of the research. However the researchers did discover that individuals on liraglutide skilled an nearly 50% slower decline in mind quantity loss than folks taking placebo over the following yr. These on the drug additionally skilled an 18% slower decline in measured cognitive operate throughout that point. The staff’s findings had been offered this week on the Alzheimer’s Affiliation Worldwide Convention.

This analysis is preliminary; it hasn’t but gone by way of the peer-review course of. And assuming the outcomes are legitimate, it’s nonetheless not clear precisely how liraglutide is likely to be bettering folks’s brains for the higher. However the researchers do have a number of attainable explanations.

“We predict liraglutide is defending the mind presumably by lowering irritation, decreasing insulin resistance and the poisonous results of Alzheimer’s biomarkers or bettering how the mind’s nerve cells talk,” stated research researcher Paul Edison, a professor of neuroscience at Imperial’s Division of Mind Sciences, in a statement from the college.

Maybe probably the most thrilling a part of this analysis is that stronger GLP-1 medication have emerged since this research started, similar to semaglutide. Semaglutide (offered below the names Ozempic and Wegovy) and the even newer tirzepatide (Mounjaro and Zepbound) have confirmed to be considerably more practical at treating diabetes and weight problems than older GLP-1 drugs like liraglutide. And a research revealed simply final month has already found proof that semaglutide can enhance mind well being in folks with sort 2 diabetes.

The makers of each liraglutide and semaglutide, Novo Nordisk, are at present conducting two large-scale, placebo-controlled trials to see whether or not semaglutide can enhance the trajectory of individuals identified with early Alzheimer’s illness. If these outcomes, anticipated to reach inside the subsequent few years, are constructive, they need to result in semaglutide and different GLP-1 medication changing into the newest device in a rising arsenal of anti-Alzheimer’s drugs.