Popular weight loss drug reduced risk of COVID deaths in new study

(The Hill) -- A popular weight loss drug reduced the risk of COVID-19 deaths, according to a new study.

The research, published Friday in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, found during a clinical trial of Wegovy that people taking the obesity drug during the COVID pandemic were less likely to die from the virus.

Semaglutide, the active medicine found in the drug, has become a popular option for people looking to lose weight. Wegovy has been widely used along with Ozempic — both medicines are also used for the treatment of Type 2 diabetes.

People taking the drug still contracted the virus during the clinical trial, but their chances of dying dropped by 33 percent, the study found.

The pandemic began after the clinical trial was already underway and it provided researchers with the opportunity to “evaluate the effect of COVID-19 on patients who were at high risk of COVID-19-related complications and death given their underlying comorbidities and whether semaglutide modified that risk.”

The study, sponsored by Wegovy’s maker Novo Nordisk, had 17,694 participants who were diganosed with heart disease.

Of the participants, 4,258 became infected with COVID. About half of them were taking Wegovy and half were on a placebo drug.

The study said 184 people who were infected died. Of those who died, 106 were taking the placebo and 78 were taking Wegovy.

Dr. Jeremy Faust, an emergency room physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital wrote an editorial accompanying the study.

“Pandemics reveal much about societies and expose their weaknesses. The lessons should motivate action,” he wrote. “That our population needs to be healthier is obvious."

"But repurposed research like the SELECT trial can yield less obvious insights, including the notion that semaglutide (and others like it) could have dramatically improved outcomes of a pandemic caused by a respiratory virus, of all things," Faust added.

He also told The New York Times in an interview that the data was “stunning.”

The research follows another recent study that found Tirzepatidde, the medicine found in weight loss drugs Zepbound and Mounjaro, reduced the severity of sleep apnea.

The study also comes as the World Health Organization and Food and Drug Administration have increased their warnings lately of counterfeit medication resembling the weight loss drugs.