The heart benefit from taking GLP-1 RA diabetes drugs depends on your BMI

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2025-09-09 01:00

International

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GLP-1 receptor agonist diabetes drugs (GLP1-RAs) including Ozempic and Mounjaro can have benefits for your heart and kidneys, but international researchers have found the heart benefit differs depending on your weight. The researchers took data from 7200 type 2 diabetes patients taking GLP1-RAs and compared with 7200 patients taking a different class of diabetes drugs, looking at instances of heart attack, stroke, heart failure, cardiovascular death and kidney problems. No matter the BMI of the patients studied, the researchers say GLP1-RAs were linked to kidney benefits, but they say the link between GLP1-RAs and lower instances of heart problems was only present for people in the overweight or obese BMI category.

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Journal/
conference: JAMA Network Open

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Keelung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Taiwan, New Taipei Municipal TuCheng Hospital, Taiwan

Funder: This work was supported by the Chang Gung Medical Foundation, Taiwan (grant No. CORPVVP0161 and CORPVVP0101).We also acknowledge the support of Chang Gung Medical Foundation (grant No. CMRPVVN0221 and CMRPVVN0231), the National Science and Technology Council (grant No. 113-2314-B-182A-062-MY3), and the Maintenance Project of the Center of Data Science and Biostatistics (grant No. CGRPG2F0011, CLRPG2C0021, CLRPG2C0022, CLRPG2C0023, CLRPG2C0024, CLRPG2G0081, CLRPG2G0082, CLRPG2G0083, CLRPG2L0021, CLRPG2L0022, and CMRPG2N0041) at Keelung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital.

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