Happy Thursday! New research showing additional health benefits of the weight loss drug Wegovy seems to crop up every week.
This time around, Novo Nordisk's blockbuster treatment helped reduce knee pain in patients with a type of arthritis and obesity, according to research published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The study was funded by Novo Nordisk, which is conducting several studies on the other potential treatment uses of semaglutide, the active ingredient in Wegovy.
The results of the 68-week trial could be a big deal for the Danish drugmaker: It could pave the way for regulatory approval of semaglutide for osteoarthritis, a degenerative joint disease that causes the cartilage and bone in your joints to break down over time.
It would be yet another expansion of the accepted uses for the blockbuster drug.
It's the most common type of arthritis and affects around 33 million people in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The condition is not a regular part of aging, but it is common among adults 45 and above.
So, how is the condition related to obesity? The risk of developing the condition is four times higher in people with obesity, the trial's lead study author Dr. Henning Bliddal, director and research professor at The Parker Institute in Denmark, said in a statement.
Losing weight can help reduce knee osteoarthritis symptoms, but adherence to those lifestyle changes can be challenging, Bliddal said. There also aren't very many other effective treatments for the condition.
"There is a significant need for non-surgical and sustainable treatment options for those living with obesity-related osteoarthritis," Bliddal added.
Let's dive into more details on the trial.
It included roughly 400 patients with knee osteoarthritis. Participants had an average age of 56, and roughly 80% of the cohort were women, who experience osteoarthritis at higher rates than men do.
People either took a weekly injection of semaglutide or a placebo for 68 weeks. Everyone also received guidance on how to maintain reduced-calorie diets and incorporate exercise into their daily lives.
Patients with osteoarthritis who dieted, exercised and took semaglutide lost more weight and reported a greater reduction in knee pain than those who lost weight with diet and exercise alone. By the end of the trial, people who took semaglutide lost an average of nearly 14% of their body weight, or around 33 pounds, compared to just 3% among those who got a placebo.
Changes in body weight were also accompanied by reductions in pain, which was measured using a specific index that scores it on a scale 0 to 100. On average, patients in the trial started with an average pain score of 70.9.
Those who took semaglutide reported a significant reduction in pain – an average drop of about 42 points — while those in the placebo group had an average drop of 27.5 points.
But it's unclear if semaglutide will have that benefit for all patients, such as those who are mildly obese or overweight. Most of the people enrolled in the trial had a high BMI, so researchers will have to replicate the findings in other populations.
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