Will history prove Daniel Drucker right? This endocrinologist at the University of Toronto (Canada) who has worked for decades on GLP-1 analogues has nicknamed them “The Swiss army knife of hormones”. Popularized under the trade names Ozempic and Wegovy (semaglutide) or Saxenda (liraglutide), these medications mimic GLP-1. It is a hormone secreted by the intestine when eating food that controls blood glucose levels and stimulates insulin production.
These medications have been shown to be effective in treating patients with type 2 diabetes, a disease related to the body’s improper use of insulin. They are among the latest therapeutic advances in the treatment of obesity. In France, the marketing of Wegovy, Ozempic’s little brother, has just begun.
For months, studies have been reporting on the possible therapeutic effects of this family of drugs in other pathologies: impact on addictions by reducing withdrawal crises, beneficial effect on cardiovascular risk, effects on polycystic ovary syndrome, osteoarthritis , depression or liver diseases. . These analogues of digestive hormones would also have a protective effect against neurodegenerative diseases.
“There is quite a bit of data starting to gather in the literature showing that semaglutide and other GLP-1 agonists may have a beneficial effect on cognitive decline and perhaps even cognitive decline due to Alzheimer’s disease.testifies Nicolas Villain, neurologist at the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital.
More than a million patients
A team of researchers at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine (Cleveland, United States) has just revealed that semaglutide, compared to seven other antidiabetic drugs, could reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease in people with diabetes type 2. published on Thursday, October 24 in the magazine Alzheimer’s and dementia: The Alzheimer’s Association Magazine.
Researchers examined the electronic records of more than one million American patients with type 2 diabetes and found that patients who had been treated with semaglutide had a significantly lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease than those treated with one of the other seven drugs. . . And this regardless of their sex, age or level of obesity.
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