Weight-loss drugs could help people who have had a heart attack avoid potentially fatal complications afterwards, according to research.
Drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy reduce the risk of tissue damage which affects up to half of the 100,000 people a year in the UK who suffer a heart attack, according to the study.
The researchers, experts in heart health, concluded that weight-loss drugs GLP-1 “may offer a promising new therapeutic approach to improve recovery from a heart attack.”
Medications are already known to reduce someone’s risk of having a heart attack or stroke. But this is the first time they have been reused to treat this common complication of a heart attack.
Dr. Svetlana Mastitskaya, lead author of the study, said the results were so encouraging that they could help pave the way for paramedics to administer medications to the heart attack patients they treat.
“In almost half of all heart attack patients, the small blood vessels inside the heart remain narrow, even after the main artery is cleared during emergency treatment.
“This results in a complication known as ‘failure to reflux’, where blood cannot reach certain parts of the heart tissue,” said Mastitskaya, a senior lecturer at the University of Bristol’s medical school.
Lack of reflux increases the risk that someone will die or be readmitted to the hospital for further treatment for heart failure within a year after the heart attack. “But our latest findings are surprising because we have discovered that GLP-1 drugs can prevent this problem,” he added.
However, the results are based on trials with animal models, so more human studies would need to be done and show the same benefits before GLP-1 can be used in people.
The British Heart Foundation funded the trial, which also involved experts from University College London. The results are published in Nature Communications.
Co-leader of the study, Professor David Attwell of UCL, said GLP-1s offer “a potentially life-saving solution” for those experiencing lack of reflux.
Mastitskaya told PA Media that “paramedics caring for the patient can administer the medications even on the way to the hospital and/or during surgical reopening of the occluded artery,” although she added that clinical trials are needed first.
It is unknown why no reflux occurs so often after a heart attack, despite treatment.
“This research suggests that mimicking the action of the hormone GLP-1 may have potential to improve blood flow through microvessels and perhaps could one day have a role in heart attack treatment. This will first require detailed human studies and clinical trials,” said Professor Bryan Williams, scientific and medical director of the BHF.
“Large clinical trials of GLP-1 drugs, such as Ozempic and Wegovy, have shown heart health benefits beyond weight loss. But it is unclear how they produce these effects. This fascinating study offers a possible explanation, suggesting that they may help improve blood flow through the heart’s smallest blood vessels.”
