Semaglutide may reduce Alzheimer’s risk in type 2 diabetes patients, with research suggesting significant protective benefits compared to other diabetes drugs.
Researchers at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine have found that semaglutide, a popular drug used for both diabetes and weight loss, may reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease in people with type 2 diabetes (T2D) compared to seven other anti-diabetic medications.
Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive brain disorder that gradually impairs memory and cognitive abilities. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, nearly 7 million Americans aged 65 and older are currently living with the disease, which causes more deaths annually than breast and prostate cancers combined.
Study Findings and Implications
Published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, the study suggests that T2D patients taking semaglutide had a significantly lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s. This effect was observed consistently across various subgroups, including differences in obesity status, gender, and age.
Semaglutide, which acts on glucagon-like peptide receptors (GLP-1R) to curb hunger and regulate blood sugar in T2D, is also the active component in the diabetes and weight-loss drugs Wegovy and Ozempic.
The research team—led by biomedical informatics professor Rong Xu—analyzed three years of electronic records of nearly 1 million U.S. patients with T2D. The researchers used a statistical approach that mimics a randomized clinical trial.
They found patients prescribed semaglutide had a significantly lower risk for Alzheimer’s disease, compared to those who had taken any of seven other anti-diabetic medications, including other types of GLP-1R-targeting medications.
About 120,000 Americans die from Alzheimer’s disease each year, with the disease listed as the seventh-leading cause of death nationally, according to the CDC.
“This new study provides real-world evidence for its impact on Alzheimer’s disease, even though preclinical research has suggested that semaglutide may protect against neurodegeneration and neuroinflammation,” said Xu, who also directs the medical school’s Center for AI in Drug Discovery and is a member of the Cancer Genomics Epigenomics Program at the Case Cancer Comprehensive Center.
Considerations and Future Research
Although their findings potentially support the idea that semaglutide could prevent Alzheimer’s disease, the study’s limitations restrict the researchers from making firm causal conclusions, she said.
“Our results indicate that further research into semaglutide’s use will need to be further investigated through randomized clinical trials so alternative drugs can be tested as potential treatment for this debilitating illness,” Xu said.
Reference: “Associations of semaglutide with first-time diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease in patients with type 2 diabetes: Target trial emulation using nationwide real-world data in the US” by William Wang, QuangQiu Wang, Xin Qi, Mark Gurney, George Perry, Nora D. Volkow, Pamela B. Davis, David C. Kaelber and Rong Xu, 24 October 2024, Alzheimer’s & Dementia.
DOI: 10.1002/alz.14313
Research reported in this press release was supported by the National Institute on Aging and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, both parts of the National Institutes of Health, under award numbers AG057557, AG061388, AG062272, AG076649, and TR004528. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.