Yet another study is underscoring the benefits of semaglutide, as published in Nature Medicine this week. In a cardiovascular outcomes trial involving 17,604 adults with preexisting cardiovascular disease, overweight, or obesity without diabetes, semaglutide showed a 20% reduction in major adverse cardiovascular events. Those treated with semaglutide sustained weight loss for up to 4 years. Authors say improvements in cardiovascular risk factors can begin with weight loss of just 5%, and in the study, semaglutide was associated with mean reduction in weight of 10.2% and a mean reduction in waist circumference of 7.7 cm at 4 years.
Making progress: Generally accepted as the measure for overweight and obesity, body mass index (BMI) was used to classify patients in the study into 5 categories. After 2 years, 52.4% of patients treated with semaglutide saw improvement in their BMI category compared with just 15.7% of those receiving placebo.