Credit: Towfiqu Barbhuiya/Adobe Stock
For people who are obese and have type 2 diabetes, using Ozempic and other GLP-1 agonist drugs cuts the all-cause mortality rate by 30%, according to a new paper published by a journal affiliated with the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Use of GLP-1 agonists also cut the risk that the patients would suffer from strokes by 19% and the risk that the patients would suffer from dementia by 37%.
Dr. Huan-Tang Lin, a researcher at Chang Gung University in Taiwan, and three colleagues based the findings in the paper on an analysis of the records in the TriNetX US database for 60,860 patients who were ages 40 or older, had obesity and diabetes, and took GLP-1 agonists between 2017 and 2024.
The researchers looked at patients who were taking drugs containing ingredients such as semaglutide, the GLP-1 agonist in Ozempic and Wegovy, and tirzepatide, the GLP-1 agonist and GIP agonist in Mounjaro and Zepbound.
The controls were similar patients, who also faced diabetes and obesity, but who took other types of antidiabetic drugs, such as iguanides, sulfonylureas, dipeptidyl, thiazolidinediones and α-glucosidase inhibitors.
People with diabetes take the GLP-1 agonists and other antidiabetic drugs to control their blood sugar. But the benefits for people taking the GLP-1 agonists were so strong that they suggest that semaglutide and tirzepatide may protect people's brains and the flow of blood through people's brains through mechanisms other than controlling people's blood sugar, the researcher wrote.
The effects were stronger for moderately obese people — with a body mass index of 30 to 40 — than for people facing more severe obesity, the researchers said.
Because of the nature of the data, it's not yet clear whether the effects of tirzepatide were different from the effects of semaglutide, the researchers noted.
The researchers said teams need to conduct randomized studies to confirm the patterns they found when they reviewed existing patient records.
What it means: About two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese.
Today, employers are struggling with the cost of paying for drugs like GLP-1 agonists for plan participants who are overweight or obese but who have no other serious health concerns.
Related: GLP-1 obesity and diabetes drugs drive 17% of employee pharmacy claims, CBIZ reports
Most plans already cover the drugs for people with diabetes.
The new study suggests that employers could have a strong financial incentive to encourage plan participants who are obese and have diabetes to take GLP-1 agonists and similar types of drugs in an effort to prevent expensive complications.
Using the drugs can cost more than $10,000 per year today, but Swiss Re analysts have predicted that the current GLP-1 agonist cost crisis will ease as the patents on the current drugs expire and new, more effective drugs come to market.
Researchers have suggested that offering broad access to tirzepatide could be a good value for plans, and cost less than $100,000 per quality-adjusted life year added, once its price falls to $4,334 per year.
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