United States: The association of diabetes and obesity, particularly with fatty liver disease, is known to worsen into liver cirrhosis.
However, the research shows that medicines like Ozempic, which belongs to the area of GLP-1, can prevent it.
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In a new trial with veterans with diabetes and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), the Veterans were 14 percent less likely to be advanced to cirrhosis if they had taken a GLP-1 compared with other medications for diabetes.
Among them, one GLP-1 med, semaglutide (Ozempic/Wegovy), appeared particularly effective in this regard, found by the team led by Dr. Fasiha Kanwal, a professor of gastroenterology at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, US News reported.
Moreover, the usage of GLP-1 meds “was associated with a lower risk of progression to cirrhosis and death,” as said by Kanwal’s team on September 16 in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.
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The researchers noted that the medicine must be taken early in the course of MASLD, as there were no benefits derived from the use of GLP-1s for patients whose MASLD complications worsened to liver cirrhosis.
A normal liver has a maximum possible fat fraction of 5 percent by weight, but in MASLD, fats can accumulate to become toxic, and these people are at risk of developing cirrhosis, liver cancer, or maybe they require a liver transplant.
There is evidence that proposes that obesity and diabetes are major risks that cause fatty liver disease.
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In the new study published in the current issue of the American Journal of Medicine, the Houston-led team assessed information from more than 32,000 patients with diabetes and MASLD treated at VA hospitals.
They were, on average, around 67 years of age.
Half of them had been taking a GLP-1 drug such as semaglutide, liraglutide, or dulaglutide for their diabetes, while the other half were in a similar health status but on a different class of diabetes drugs called DPP-4s.
As the researchers found, GLP-1 reduced a patient’s overall chance of developing cirrhosis by 14 percentage points compared with people who took DPP-4.
The death and cardiovascular event hazards were also reduced, and those using GLP-1 also recorded an 11 percent survival rate during the study period.
What more have the experts stated?
According to Kanwal’s group, “The protective association was not seen in patients with existing cirrhosis, underscoring the importance of treatment earlier in the [MASLD] disease course,” US News reported.
Additionally, the researchers noted these drugs “reduce body weight, glycemia [blood sugar issues] and inflammation — actions that could reduce the risk of MASLD progression.”