7 ms·
Ozempic does not slow Alzheimer's, study finds
- wonderwonder 11mo agoI would think eventually all of the additional positives of the drug will resolve to obesity is bad and reducing obesity has health benefits. Which should be perfectly fine as its valid and results in massive positives in both health and quality of life.
- estearum 11mo agoWe already know that's not the case though. A huge portion of the benefits are downstream of obesity, yes, but we already know GLPs have positive effects even without weight loss.
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- wpasc 11mo agogenuinely curious if you have some sources I can read on the subject? most of the benefits/papers I've seen have not touched on or included studies for patients on GLP's where weight loss was ruled out as the factor?
- nwienert 11mo agoActually even in the very beginning I saw numerous studies showing effects outside weight loss, I'm sure a search would find them. I remember seeing at least 3-4 a couple years ago.
- AWebOfBrown 11mo agohttps://www.medlink.com/news/from-blood-sugar-to-brain-relief-glp-1-therapy-slashes-migraine-frequency https://www.medlink.com/news/from-blood-sugar-to-brain-relie...
- flir 11mo agoNah, obesity reduction is itself a downstream effect of messing with neurotransmitters. There have to be other consequences of that - both good and bad.
- estearum 11mo agoThere don't have to be any other consequences, certainly not both good and bad ones. Biology doesn't actually have some scale of justice that means good things must be offset by bad things. But yes, it's very probable (in fact we already know) the drug is doing several things in the body.
- flir 11mo agoI was more thinking that evolved systems rarely have convenient switches you can flip and just get a single outcome. You perturb the system, and you get a cascade of changes. It's not like engineering. Nothing about justice was implied, so lets say desirable and undesirable instead of good and bad.
- estearum 11mo agoYes you’re right to be concerned about this, I’m taking issue with your assumption that there must be undesirable effects.
- astura 11mo ago>eventually all of the additional positives of the drug will resolve to obesity is bad and reducing obesity has health benefits. This is not true. Ozempic appears to affect the brain's rewards system and its known to decreased cravings and urges for a range of unhealthy behaviors, from alcohol consumption and smoking to gambling and shopping to nail biting and skin picking. Beyond that, Ozempic appears to lower the risk of heart attacks and strokes in overweight people well beyond what weight loss alone would explain. Maybe due to the above (less drinking and smoking) or another unknown mechanism of action. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/weight-loss-drug-wegovy-slashes-risk-of-death-in-some-people-with-heart-disease/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/weight-loss-drug-...
- toraway 11mo agoI started taking prescription Zepbound (tirzepatide) right when it was approved for about 6 months and lost 30 pounds, later switched to a low dose of much cheaper grey market semaglutide for maintenance. The anti-drinking side effect was unexpected and somewhat shocking to experience. I had heavily drank in the evening for almost a decade to varying degrees and then pretty much stopped overnight once hitting the 5mg dose of Zepbound on the second month. After ending the Zepbound I had a few months where I wasn't taking anything before resuming the maintenance semaglutide, and although food cravings slowly started returning, I still had/have zero interest in drinking whatsoever unless in a social setting where I may have 1-2 drinks (but usually avoid it altogether without requiring any conscious effort). There is definitely massive variance in the individual psychology/biology that leads to habitual alcohol overuse so I'm sure others might not have the same experience. But for me I'm pretty confident that breaking that deeply engrained habit of starting the first of 6-10 drinks at 6-7pm every day was what did it (without feeling like I was being forced to do something I didn't want). Which was pretty much impossible for me to even envision back when it was such a normal part of my day-to-day coping strategy for stress/depression/etc. Although I always knew my drinking was excessive and terrible for my health, past my early 20s I was super high functioning and wasn't interfering with my job or life (other than holding me back and probably slowly killing me), and so being an "alcoholic" was never part of my identity (rightly or wrongly), which I kinda think ironically made it easier to just take the win and move on with my life without nagging self-doubt or fixation on whether my "addiction is cured". But it's been about 2 years now and I hardly ever think about alcohol even when super stressed so something, somewhere in my brain changed thanks to tirzepatide and whatever the mechanism I'm grateful for that happy accident of a positive side effect!
- SubiculumCode 11mo agoIt is a reasonable thought, but that exact question has been investigated and benefits were not totally explained by weight loss. I don't recall the link, but it was featured on HN
- KittenInABox 11mo agoWhy would Ozempic, a chemical affecting a specific receptor found in specific parts of the body, affect alzheimer's? I'm just asking questions here I don't understand what the mechanism of action is that this would be disappointing news.
- jfarina 11mo agoMaybe because poor diet has been linked to alzheimers?
- foobiekr 11mo ago"Type 3 diabetes" is one of the speculated causes of alzheimer's. The evidence there is not great.
- delichon 11mo agoFixing type 1 or 2 diabetes does not fix the damage they already did either.
- devmor 11mo agoIt was correlated to lower Dementia rates in a past study. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13872877251351329 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13872877251351329
- KittenInABox 11mo agoThanks, I wasn't aware of this. Do we know how?
- scarmig 11mo agoI don't think there's a confirmed mechanism (or even whether the fact that it does prevent dementia is a confirmed fact). But you could speculate that obesity -> cardiovascular issues -> neurological damage, and that could explain things.
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- GuB-42 11mo agoSource: https://www.novonordisk.com/news-and-media/news-and-ir-materials/news-details.html?id=916462# https://www.novonordisk.com/news-and-media/news-and-ir-mater... Ongoing study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39780249/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39780249/ Usual rant to news outlets: Cite your damn sources! (if they are public, which is the case here). This is a web page, not printed paper, web pages support links, links are not just for ads!
- OptionOfT 11mo agoBut but but we have to keep traffic on our website! Engagement! That's why when you click on a link you see 1/10th of the article, and then a video, and 3 other irrelevant inlays for other links. Oh and the video auto plays with sound. And every word in the article that is remotely a 'tag' links to other parts of the website.
- codedokode 11mo ago> video auto plays with sound. Without sound in Firefox, I assume?
- rtpg 11mo agoI understand not having a link to the primary source at the top of an article because you might be trying to write an explainer, but if you want to avoid confusing your readers but still do the right thing at the very least include a bunch of source links at the bottom of the article! I know all the cynical reasons not to do it, but I feel like even the good faith objection has a pretty straightforward solution.
- megaman821 11mo agoI can't remember the source, but I think this only rules out small-dose, oral. There will still be a trial with large-dose, injectable.
- burnt-resistor 11mo agoFor reference in typical maintenance doses: - Rybelsus (type-2 diabetes; oral semaglutide 14 mg/day; much less bioavailability) - Wegovy (obesity; injectable semaglutide 2.4 mg/wk) - Ozempic (type-2 diabetes; injectable semaglutide 1.0 mg/wk)
- Mariehane 11mo agoWill there be a large-dose trial? I imagine that’s going to be more difficult, as the weight-loss effect of GLP-1 means you cant include frail patients in your target group. And GLP-1 at high doses also has some unfavourable side-effects: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation.
- astrange 11mo agoIndeed, and it's literally not Ozempic but Rybelsus.
- paulvnickerson 11mo agoneither do most things in life
- burnt-resistor 11mo agoMakes sense, sadly. Alzheimer's isn't one thing but a category of degenerative pathologies. Probably also requires holistic improvements in lifestyle ( hydration, sleep, exercise, diet (not just quantity)), gene in/activation, &| vaccines for TAU &| β-amyloid. PS: I wonder if nootropics will be developed to emulate or enhance the effects of exercise.
- pedalpete 11mo agoI'm surprised this study didn't segment a portion of the subjects as diabetic and I wonder if such a sub-group would potentially have seen an improvement over non-diabetic subjects. I'm sure this isn't the last we will hear of the potential of GLP1s in neurological diseases. At the same time, our work in neurostimulation of slow-wave sleep is showing promise with a correlation between neurostimulation response, amyloid response, and memory in healthy older adults[1], as well as tolerance of stimulation in people living with Alzheimer's [2]. More studies to be done, but if you're curious, we link to a large body of research on our website https://www.affectablesleep.com/how-it-works?type=All#research https://www.affectablesleep.com/how-it-works?type=All#resear... [1] https://doi.org/10.1093/ageing/afad228 https://doi.org/10.1093/ageing/afad228 [2] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jagp.2024.07.002 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jagp.2024.07.002
- mistercheph 11mo agoThere is no way magic weight loss drug will have any unexpected downsides!
- Qem 11mo agoWhat about vascular dementia?
- razingeden 11mo agothe premise , iirc: involves vascular inflammation. in the brain in the case of alzheimers. <theorized.> more readily applicable to vascular dementia. and then, in the rest of the cardiovascular system in artherosclerosis/CVD. (reducing inflammation = reducing plaques laid down over them , that are being attracted to inflamed areas.. or piling up dead macrophages and foamy cells that went there to help.) im not aware that either of these are totally settled at this time other than some anecdotal data on slowing down MACE and progression in the latter case (CVD). some cardiologists are believers and incorporating it in treatment now. its not an industry best practice but for those who are prescribing it for this reason, theyre citing a 20-40% reduction in events over 2-5 years. or put another way. we know inflammation plays a role in CVD and we have a pretty reliable biomarker (CRP ) for whether this holds water and the inflammation is reduced by glp-1 agonists. not to be controversial or speak to medical matters but its my understanding that it does. its role in dementia/alzheimers is just one of the ideas out there but the reasoning and the conclusions are kind of in the same neighborhood.
- PhaedrusV 11mo agoNice to see negative results being published
- caycep 11mo agoexenatide failed in phase III for Parkinson's as well sadly