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Ozempic linked to lower Alzheimer's risk in people with Type 2 diabetes
- benchtobedside 2y agoTL;DR from the article: The study found that patients prescribed semaglutide had a significantly lower risk for Alzheimer’s disease than those who had taken one of the seven other diabetes drugs. The results were consistent across gender, age and weight. The biggest difference was seen when comparing patients who took semaglutide to those who took insulin: Semaglutide patients had a 70% lower risk of Alzheimer’s, the study found. Full link to the study itself: https://alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/alz.14313 https://alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/alz...
- SoftTalker 2y agoHasn't there been speculation/study along the lines of Alzheimer's being a form of diabetes?
- BJones12 2y agoYes. For example: "Is Alzheimer's disease a Type 3 Diabetes? A critical appraisal" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925443916302150 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092544391...
- Someone1234 2y agoWith the constant stream of positive news around GLP-1s, and ever-growing list of things they treat, we may all wind up on some dose with only the dose varying depending on what illness they're targeting.
- AStonesThrow 2y agoMy PCP agrees that the great results I'm getting on Fen-Phen mean I won't need to switch!
- Someone1234 2y agoGLP-1 have already been on the mass market longer than Fen-Phen (7-years for Fen-Phen Vs. 15+ years, even just Semaglutide has been available longer than Fen-Phen now, and Semaglutide is a third-gen GLP-1). Honestly, this retort can be made about any/all new drugs entering the market. If you had a legitimate retort/critique I'm sure you would have presented it, but this is all we get. This is what happens when you start out with "[thing] is bad" then work backwards to figure out a reason.
- ikanreed 2y agoUltimately the main reason it's bad right now is it's expensive. Far beyond the amount needed to recoup research investment and far far far far far far far far far beyond what it takes to synthesize. Low-end cost of $1000 a month is a lot. That's an expensive car lease, or half a cheap mortgage.
- Someone1234 2y agoI fully agree. Least of all because it is sold at between $60-200 abroad full-priced. Those countries just have price controls; the pharmacies are still making 80%+ profit margins in those places. Ultimately, a lot of people will literally die because of this greed. That isn't hyperbole.
- tptacek 2y agoThese things are priced against their alternatives, and so are almost definitionally less expensive than the status quo ante.
- rustcleaner 2y agoSuddenly it's a national security issue. Suddenly USGov issues emergency production licenses and orders domestically to drop that down to effectively $0.10/kilodose on the market. Suddenly when Denmark (or whoever) whines, USGov sends a cumulative NATO military defense bill, tells them they are the reserve currency, they have bigger nukes, and tough shit next time don't pork barrel the American people. Lots of options for Americans; question is, can we be unprincipled enough to take the steps neccessary? :^)
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- nordsieck 2y ago> With the constant stream of positive news around GLP-1s, and ever-growing list of things they treat, we may all wind up on some dose with only the dose varying depending on what illness they're targeting. So far, I haven't seen much evidence that GLP-1s have a positive effect on people who aren't overweight. And while I'll be the first to admit that the proportion of people who could benefit from these drugs is quite large, it's pretty far from everyone.
- Someone1234 2y ago> So far, I haven't seen much evidence that GLP-1s have a positive effect on people who aren't overweight. It is licensed, tested, and sold as a Type-2 Diabetes medication. Are you claiming it is ineffective for that purpose? Or if you're under the impression that no healthy weight T2 Diabetics exist, I have some news for you... It is also being studied for: opioid addiction, alcoholism, Alzheimer's/Parkinson’s, Cardiovascular Disease, NASH, and PCOS. "So far, I haven't seen evidence" may be more related to what you have read than what is available for you to read.
- jewayne 2y agoDon't dismiss the most important question -- does semaglutide really have any effects outside its current intended use for diabetes and weight loss? In other words, would a thin, metabolically healthy person benefit from taking semaglutide? So far, all of the wonderful benefits from taking the drug seem to be explainable by reduced caloric intake / weight loss / better glucose control in overweight and/or diabetic people.
- Someone1234 2y ago> In other words, would a thin, metabolically healthy person benefit from taking semaglutide? That's what this thread is about; and multiple other studies looking at different diseases/illnesses/addictions. Time will tell. It is currently approved for T2 Diabetes and Obesity.
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- thefz 2y agoWhy would taking a drug you don't need for the rest of your days be a good thing?
- oldpersonintx 2y ago[dead]
- jonwachob91 2y agohttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589537024003055 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S258953702...
- declan_roberts 2y agoHow do you isolate this from the therapeutic benefits of simply losing weight and being skinny?
- Spooky23 2y agoOmg, you figured it out! Shit. All we need to do is just tell a few million people to lose weight.
- rustcleaner 2y ago"That was Easy!"™
- criddell 2y agoI think you misunderstood what they were asking. If it’s the drug and not the weight loss that lowers Alzheimers risk, then even people who are not overweight might benefit from the drug.
- ebiester 2y agoThere are multiple confounding factors: * Blood sugar levels (or whatever this is a proxy for) * Weight * The changes the GLP-1 Agonists make to the body itself. While it is simple to say if you reduce the weight, you reduce the blood sugar levels, and so the GLP-1 is unnecessary, you can look at many accounts of using Ozempic where it talks about reducing the "food noise." That is, Ozempic makes it easier to eat the right things. I'm a "normal weight" through grit, but I don't think my life is better through said grit - in fact, I'd say it's significantly worse. In my earlier life, I was naturally thin, and I can say that my weight increase wasn't a significant change to my diet, nor was my weight loss: I just had to be hungry and irritable more. So, fundamentally, the cause and effect doesn't matter, because the drug makes it easier to be a more healthy weight and to control the blood sugar.
- Spivak 2y ago> nor was my weight loss: I just had to be hungry and irritable more Yes! I keep trying to explain to folks that this is the benefit of these drugs, they let you keep a healthy relationship with food, maintain "intuitive eating" where you aren't constantly fighting and discarding your hunger signals, and aren't (as) miserable doing it. I did it the hard way, I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
- apsec112 2y agoThis would be amazing if true, but the lack of randomization makes me nervous. What if, like, patients who are about to get Alzheimer's are less aggressive about asking their doctor for semaglutide (which has been in shortage for a while), and that explains the trial results?
- catlikesshrimp 2y agoAlzheimer (the regular one, not the early onset) is a progressive condition usually not detected early. Moreover, keep in mind it is possible we understand less about Alzheimer than we thought, from the very start https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/alzheimers-theory-undermined-accusations-fabricated-research-rcna39843 https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/alzheimers-theo... This publication is bogus. It is too soon to know if there is any benefit at all from Semaglutide.
- curious_cat_163 2y ago> nationwide database of electronic health records (EHRs) of 116 million US patients. If you are expert in this space: Is such a dataset available publicly? If so, are there examples of other studies that have used this? Where does one go to read more about the mechanism of this study? Thanks!
- jmcgough 2y agoThere is no public dataset of EHRs of this size.
- whimsicalism 2y agoAlmost all health datasets are not public
- bearjaws 2y agoLikely this is some aggregator in the Healthcare space that uses tools that effectively fingerprint patients in each EHR. This deduplicates patients and lets them find specific details like which medications they are on without knowing any PII. It's very common for researchers within health systems to want to collaborate and combine populations to perform retroactive data analysis.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- rustcleaner 2y agoI really really really wish my records were kept tight, offline, air gapped, or otherwise not stored on a cloud system with Trust Me Bro™ HIPAA-compliant security. (The Trust Me Bro™ security aspect is the "It's secure because people will go to jail" and "We so totes won't use this easily subpoenaed data against you" security, when it would be best if the data stayed on a RAID in my doctor's office and an offsite VPN-linked backup instead. This goes 20x for psychs.)
- thepasswordis 2y agoOf all things my taxes go to, I would love it the United States Government would buy the patent for this drug and make it freely available to anybody who wants it. The number of things it apparently just cures is staggering.
- voidfunc 2y agoGonna be fun discovering what side effects it causes in 20 years tho.
- abra0 2y agoThe real question is whether these side-effects are going to be worse than 20 years of not taking it.
- AlexandrB 2y agoThis is the question and for people that are older the scales steadily tip towards just taking the damn drug because in 20 years they're likely to be dead anyways.
- mbostleman 2y agoExactly. I see all these breathless claims of new uses and how wonderful this drug is and wonder when the other shoe is going to drop.
- cthalupa 2y agoI’ll make my usual response: we know that being obese is basically the worst possible thing you can do to yourself, and the longer you are, the worse it is. The side effects are going to be pretty awful just to negate that, much less all the other things they seem to be good for.
- sandworm101 2y ago>> being obese is basically the worst possible thing you can do to yourself Lol. I can think of dozens of worse things. Drinking. Cocaine addiction. Meth. Winding up in prison for some reason. Riding a motorcycle without a proper helmet. Getting into a plane flown by Harrison Ford. Even simple unprotected sex can lead to massive medical problems. Ever looked up the average life expectancy of professional athletes, especially the NFL? It isn't great.
- mainecoder 2y agoOh Oh Oh Ozem...I forgot the rest
- qqqult 2y agoIs it the ozempic or just the healthier weight / lower calorie intake?
- drowsspa 2y ago"Just"?
- cthalupa 2y agoIf it independently helps lower the risk of Alzheimer's even in people that are not diabetic and are of healthy body weight, then it might be worthwhile for those people to take. If it's purely around the weight loss, etc., then it won't. I don't think the comment was meant to minimize the impact of losing weight on health.
- jewayne 2y agoI just listened to an in-depth analysis of this last night. All of these great effects can be explained by reduced caloric intake / weight loss / better glucose control. In other words - it just means it works as intended. So while it's an amazing drug / new class of drugs, it probably will not lower risk of Alzheimer's in metabolically healthy people.
- newfocogi 2y agoFor the group, because I can never keep the terms straight: Semaglutide is one specific drug within the class of GLP-1 agonists. Other examples include Liraglutide (Victoza, Saxenda), Dulaglutide (Trulicity), and Tirzepatide (Mounjaro, though this is technically a dual GIP/GLP-1 agonist). Semaglutide is available under several brand names for different uses: Ozempic (type 2 diabetes), Wegovy (weight management), and Rybelsus (oral form for type 2 diabetes).
- steeeeeve 2y agoGet skinny and keep my brain? No thanks. At some point this roller coaster ride needs to end.
- imp0cat 2y agoYou might think that these two (get skinny and lower Alzheimer's risk) are the only two benefits, but don't forget that this drug is also pretty much the end of the road for the "More People Should Be Fat!/HAES movement". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_at_Every_Size https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_at_Every_Size And good riddance I say!
- r00fus 2y agoMan that "movement" is such a scam that's used to promote unhealthy eating habits.
- cthalupa 2y agoAgreed. I'm down for being empathetic to fat people - as a fat person! - but I have never understood the movement to just deny reality and act like it's acceptable to be fat from a health perspective. Obviously fat people should still have access to healthcare, but putting our heads in the sand and pretending that it isn't a situation that has huge impact on our quality of life and lifespan has always struck me as absurd.
- mensetmanusman 2y agoFinally, pharma is paying for studies showing the advantages of not being obese.
- lawrenceyan 2y agoWhy not just lose weight by eating less? I know that sounds like a dumb question. But genuinely, aren’t you just paying money to… not spend the money on food instead?
- lazyasciiart 2y agoThis is like asking why ADHD patients don’t just get over it by focusing more.
- lawrenceyan 2y agoI would state it in a kinder way maybe, but at the end of the day that's basically what you have to do? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- sodality2 2y agoThe entire point of the ADHD diagnosis, in fact, is about the inability or reduced ability to "just focus more", and the medicine's purpose is to alleviate that imbalance
- BoingBoomTschak 2y agoSo easy to invent imaginary diseases to cover for decadent lack of willpower and portray a decent life hygiene as something as heroic as firewalking or quitting crack.
- RoyalHenOil 2y agoMy mom is obese because she developed an autoimmune disorder while she was pregnant with me that attacks her thyroid. She has extremely abnormal thyroid cells that have to be biopsied twice a year and she has to take daily thyroid medication or she will die. She is about to start on Ozempic as well because the thyroid medication is not enough. To manage her disease, she eats much less and much healthier (e.g., steamed kale for dinner every night) than everyone else in my family, and yet she is the obese one amongst us. Please stop acting like life-saving drugs are evil and everything can be managed through willpower alone. My mom would be dead without modern medical science, and I would have died in the womb with her.
- cynicalpeace 2y agoAccording to this article, it's been (sorta) reproduced once, which is better than most studies. About 40-60% of scientific studies are not reproducible. Given that, I'd want to see more reproductions. Also, I'm very annoyed by our American culture which tries to fix problems with drugs, rather than preventing them from happening in the first place with good diet, exercise, sleep and stress management.
- nemomarx 2y agoA drug that reduces appetite is kinda tackling good diet, at least.
- cynicalpeace 2y agoKeyword is "kinda"
- zpeti 2y agoI agree with your sentiment, but frankly human nature just doesn’t work that way. We don’t have self control. We weren’t evolved for a world of abundance. This is no one’s fault, and it’s everywhere, china is getting fatter than most countries now. Realistically, ozempic is a miracle and it seems to be a solution to numerous issues of our world. It would be nice if it wasn’t so, but apart from the 10% of people who can control themselves (which also causes psychological issues btw), most people just can’t.
- irrational 2y agoHow long has Ozempic been around? I've never heard of it until very recently (maybe the last month or two) and suddenly I'm seeing it all the time. Maybe this is an instance of Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, but it doesn't feel like it.
- Tokkemon 2y agoOzempic has been around about 10 years used mostly for diabetes, but it's use for weight loss management has exploded with the release similar drugs using the same core principles such as Wegovy and Mounjaro. There's also definitely a compounding effect of it being successful for people and them telling their friends.
- cpach 2y agoTrials started in 2008 AFAICT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semaglutide#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semaglutide#History
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- OptionOfT 2y agoI actually am on ZepBound, and it's great, only I just heard that my coverage is going away. I'm gonna pay the $650 / month and suck it up. Disgusting.