Ozempic Could Also Help Combat Dementia

Semaglutide, the active ingredient in popular weight loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, might also double as a brain booster. Research out today describes a link between semaglutide use and a reduced risk of dementia in people with type 2 diabetes.

Scientists at Case Western Reserve University conducted the study, published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. They found that diabetes patients taking semaglutide have a significantly lower risk of dementia than those taking other diabetes medications. The findings should prompt further study into this connection, including clinical trials, the researchers say.

GLP-1 drugs were first approved to help control blood sugar in people with type 2 diabetes. Newer GLP-1 agents, such as semaglutide, have also proven to be substantially more effective at helping people lose weight than diet and exercise alone. Studies are also showing that the health benefits of GLP-1s can extend beyond just weight loss. Study researcher Rong Xu and her team have been looking into some of these potential added benefits. Their past studies have suggested that semaglutide can help temper cravings for nicotine or opioids, for instance.

There is currently no known cure for dementia, as Xu notes. But up to half of all dementia cases might be preventable, and scientists have identified over a dozen modifiable risk factors that contribute to dementia risk, including obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease—all conditions that GLP-1s like semaglutide are known to address. GLP-1s also seem to generally reduce inflammation, yet another contributing factor to dementia.

Given all that, “semaglutide has emerged as a promising candidate” for a preventative treatment that can tackle multiple drivers of dementia risk, Xu told Gizmodo.

The researchers had already found a link between semaglutide use and a reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia. The team, wanting to test its hypothesis with other related dementias, analyzed the medical records of around 1.7 million patients with type 2 diabetes.

Over a three-year span, they found that people on semaglutide had a noticeably lower risk (around 40% to 50% lower) of developing any Alzheimer’s disease-related dementia than those taking any of seven other diabetes medications, including insulin and metformin. This pattern could be seen among men, women, younger and older patients, and in people with or without obesity. On closer inspection, however, a reduced risk associated with semaglutide was only found with vascular dementia (the second-most common form of dementia), and not with Lewy body dementia or frontotemporal dementia.

“As we and others have previously shown benefit for semaglutide and other GLP-1RA medications in [Alzheimer’s disease], our results support the GLP-1 receptor as a target for dementia prevention,” they wrote in their paper.

These findings aren’t definitive, however, and can only show a correlation between semaglutide and lower dementia risk. That said, there’s been a lot of evidence— much of it encouraging—to warrant clinical trials that could truly show a causal effect, the researchers say. Indeed, Novo Nordisk, the developers of Ozempic and Wegovy, are currently conducting two large-scale trials testing semaglutide for Alzheimer’s (both are expected to finish as early as this year). Xu and her team also next plan to study whether tirzepatide and other emerging, potentially more effective GLP-1 drugs can provide an even greater buffer against dementia.