medical research – TheNewsHub https://thenewshub.in Thu, 24 Oct 2024 11:00:01 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7 Novo Nordisk's diabetes drug Ozempic may reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease, study says https://thenewshub.in/2024/10/24/novo-nordisks-diabetes-drug-ozempic-may-reduce-the-risk-of-alzheimers-disease-study-says/ https://thenewshub.in/2024/10/24/novo-nordisks-diabetes-drug-ozempic-may-reduce-the-risk-of-alzheimers-disease-study-says/?noamp=mobile#respond Thu, 24 Oct 2024 11:00:01 +0000 https://thenewshub.in/2024/10/24/novo-nordisks-diabetes-drug-ozempic-may-reduce-the-risk-of-alzheimers-disease-study-says/

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Novo Nordisk‘s blockbuster diabetes drug Ozempic may reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, suggesting its potential to delay or prevent the memory-robbing condition, according to a study released Thursday. 

Semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic, was associated with a 40% to 70% lower risk of a first-time Alzheimer’s diagnosis in patients with Type 2 diabetes compared with seven other diabetes medications. That includes insulin and older so-called GLP-1 drugs similar to Ozempic, the research said. 

Alzheimer’s disease is often diagnosed in the mild dementia stage, when a person has significant trouble with memory and thinking. Almost 7 million Americans have the condition, the fifth-leading cause of death for adults over 65, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. But the number of Alzheimer’s patients is projected to rise to almost 13 million in the U.S. by 2050. 

There are no cures for Alzheimer’s, only drugs that treat the symptoms of the disease or slow the progression of the condition in people at the early stages of it. But a potential preventive treatment such as semaglutide may prove even more useful, said lead study co-author Dr. Rong Xu, a biomedical informatics professor at Case Western Reserve University. 

That’s because by the time many patients are diagnosed with the disease, “it’s often too late for treatment,” Xu told CNBC. She added that many of the risk factors of Alzheimer’s, such as obesity, diabetes and smoking, are preventable and “modifiable.” 

The results add to mounting evidence that GLP-1s, a popular class of obesity and diabetes medications, may offer health benefits beyond promoting weight loss and regulating blood sugar. That includes Ozempic, Novo Nordisk’s weight loss injection Wegovy, and drugs from Eli Lilly that work slightly differently. 

Novo Nordisk and rival Eli Lilly have been studying their drugs as potential treatments for chronic conditions such as sleep apnea and fatty liver disease. Novo Nordisk, which did not fund the new Case Western study, is also examining semaglutide in a late-stage study on Alzheimer’s patients. 

The new Case Western study released Thursday builds on other research released in July on a once-daily drug for diabetes and obesity called liraglutide, which Novo Nordisk sells under the brand names Saxenda and Victoza. In the liraglutide research, data from a midstage trial found that the drug may slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease by protecting patients’ brains. 

In the study released Thursday, researchers from Case Western analyzed three years of electronic records of nearly 1 million U.S. patients with diabetes who did not have a prior Alzheimer’s diagnosis. The study was partly funded by the National Institutes of Health. 

The study compared semaglutide with seven different diabetes medications, including insulin and a drug called metformin. It also includes other GLP-1s, such as liraglutide and a medication from Eli Lilly called dulaglutide. 

Semaglutide was associated with a roughly 70% lower risk of first-time Alzheimer’s diagnosis compared with insulin, a nearly 60% lower risk compared with metformin and a 40% lower risk compared with other GLP-1s, according to the study. Semaglutide was also associated with significantly lower prescriptions for Alzheimer’s disease-related medications, the study said. 

Similar reductions in risks were seen across patients in the trial, regardless of their gender, age group and whether they had obesity. 

But the study has limitations since it relies on data from electronic health records. Xu called for more research, specifically clinical trials that randomly assign patients to receive semaglutide or other treatments, to confirm how much Ozempic and other GLP-1s can help prevent or delay Alzheimer’s disease. 

Xu and the team of researchers also plan to study whether GLP-1s can prevent Alzheimer’s in patients with obesity, but they want to wait one or two years for GLP-1s approved for weight loss to be on the market longer so there is more patient data for them to analyze. Wegovy won approval in the U.S. in 2021, while Eli Lilly’s weight loss injection Zepbound only entered the market last fall.

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Snoring Linked To Elevated Blood Pressure: Australian Study Reveals Significant Connection https://thenewshub.in/2024/10/04/snoring-linked-to-elevated-blood-pressure-australian-study-reveals-significant-connection/ https://thenewshub.in/2024/10/04/snoring-linked-to-elevated-blood-pressure-australian-study-reveals-significant-connection/?noamp=mobile#respond Fri, 04 Oct 2024 15:27:00 +0000 https://thenewshub.in/2024/10/04/snoring-linked-to-elevated-blood-pressure-australian-study-reveals-significant-connection/

Canberra: Australian research has found a link between snoring and elevated blood pressure. 

According to the study, which was conducted by sleep scientists from Flinders University in South Australia, people who regularly snore at night are more likely to have elevated blood pressure and uncontrolled hypertension, Xinhua news agency reported.

Hypertension occurs when the pressure in a person’s blood vessels is too high. It can cause serious damage to the heart and lead to heart attack, stroke, heart failure and heart disease.

Blood pressure is recorded in millimetres of mercury (mmHg) as two numbers such as 120/80. The first number – the systolic blood pressure – measures the pressure in the arteries as the heart pumps out blood and the second – diastolic blood pressure – is the pressure as the heart relaxes before the next beat.

The study found that 15 per cent of 12,287 participants snored for more than 20 per cent of the night on average over a six-month monitoring period and that those with high snoring levels had a 3.8 mmHg higher systolic blood pressure and 4.5 mmHg higher diastolic blood pressure than participants who did not snore.

The Flinders University study was the first to use multiple night home-based monitoring technologies over a prolonged period to investigate the link between snoring and hypertension. Participants in the study were middle-aged and 88 percent were male.

“For the first time, we can objectively say that there is a significant connection between regular nighttime snoring and high blood pressure,” Bastien Lechat, lead author of the research from the College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders University, said in a media release on Wednesday.

“These results emphasise the significance of considering snoring as a factor in healthcare and treatment for sleep-related issues, especially in the context of managing hypertension.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 1.28 billion adults aged 30-79 years worldwide have hypertension and that 46 per cent of adults with hypertension are unaware they have the condition.

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