United States: The Danish company Novo Nordisk opened a new tab for Wegovy, a popular obesity medication, indicating that women with a particular type of heart disease lost more weight than men with the same pathology based on applied analysis of published study material in a peer-reviewed journal.
More about the news
These trials involved 1,145 patients and were based on Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction, one of the three types of heart failure – where the muscles that make up the heart wall become stiffer and pull in less blood, as Reuters reported.
The results of the two trials to assess the safety and efficacy of the drug in individuals with obesity and heart failure with preserved, reduced or both; With or without diabetes, including HFpEF were shared and showcased during the American Diabetes Association Scientific Sessions under taken in Orlando, Florida on Sunday.
The drug also prospectively enhanced points on the HFpEF symptom burden, physical incapacity, and exercise function, alike in males and females, the former remnant demonstrated.
This is the prespecified analysis, which was published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
What more have the experts stated?
According to Stephen Gough, Novo’s chief medical officer, “We’re seeing a benefit across males and females,” as Reuters reported.
Moreover as Gough added that data used in the trial supported Wegovy’s potential to deliver clinical improvements in patients with heart failure.
These trials were not conducted to assess how the treatment differences between Novo’s Wegovy which is chemically called as semaglutide, by biological sex.
The ratio of females among the patients involved in the trials was found to be quite high, with fifty percent of the participants being females. A comparison of the current findings indicates that they had a higher BMI and even worse heart failure symptoms.
A similar trend was noted in female and male differences, where females had lower rates of abnormal heart rhythm or coronary artery disease than males, as Reuters reported.
According to the data that has been gathered, the suggested 2.4-milligram dose of semaglutide also provided a stronger female-centric weight loss implication. Females lost, on an average basis, about 9.6 percent, although the male candidates’ weight loss was only slightly higher and totaled approximately 7.2 percent of body weight.
The treatment for heart failure was also said to have cured both sexes, with each experiencing almost 7.5 percent on a total of 0-100 point scoring system.
Similar works have also found reception with semaglutide of more weight-cutting in women compared to men, partly due to what has not been elaborated on yet in the analysis.
Other studies have also shown a greater weight-loss response in women than in men with semaglutide, for reasons that aren’t clear yet, according to the analysis.
More about the findings of the study
The “Robust and qualitative/mixed” point/finding that the authors noted as a “Key surprising finding” from the analysis regarding weight loss was the Association’s observation that, unlike in women, females with greater weight loss did not benefit from proportionately greater improvements in HF symptoms, as stated in the editorial accompanying the study.
However, that survey revealed that there was a difference between the intended and actual amount of time dedicated to LT and more research was needed to find a reason for the discrepancy, according to the researchers.
A lower incidence of severe adverse effects was observed in the semaglutide recipients in comparison to the placebo arm, statistical analysis indicated.
HFpEF is referred to as heart failure for about half of the cases; these have symptoms of shortness of breath and swelling of the limbs.
Some of the related findings that have been observed include that the condition primarily impacts the overweight groups or categories, and statistically, this is more prevalent among women.