Some popular weight loss drugs may lower the risk of dementia and stroke for patients with Type 2 diabetes and obesity, new research published in JAMA Network suggests.
Patients taking semaglutide or tirzepatide medications — active ingredients in weight loss drugs such as Ozempic, Mounjaro and Wegovy — showed a lower risk of developing certain diseases compared to those taking other, similar medications.
Those include neurodegenerative diseases, such as dementia and Alzheimer’s, and cerebrovascular disease, which manifests in strokes, brain aneurysms and more.
Researchers analyzed the health developments over seven years in 60,000 adults aged 40 or older diagnosed with both Type 2 diabetes and obesity, as recorded by the TriNetX U.S. network.
The patients were all users of semaglutide, tirzepatide or other GLP-1 anti-diabetes drugs from December 2017 through June 2024.
The effects were most prominent among women, patients older than 60 and those with a body mass index of 30 to 40.
Researchers acknowledged more clinical trials are needed to corroborate their initial findings, but they maintained the data “represents one of the most recent clinical database–driven analyses to investigate the neuroprotective and cerebrovascular associations of newer GLP-1RAs” for some patients.
