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A new study found that the weight loss drug Ozempic can help reduce a stroke patient’s risk of a heart attack or death. The researchers revealed that GLP-1 weight-loss drugs like Ozempic or SGLT2 diabetes medications like Jardiance or Farxiga can help protect people after a stroke. The findings of the study were presented at the American Heart Association’s annual meeting in Chicago and are yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal.

The results of the study show that patients taking a GLP-1 or SGLT2 drug had a 74% lower risk of death and an 84% lower risk of a heart attack within an average three years after their stroke, according to a report in U.S. News. The study also says that SGLT2 drugs were also linked to a 67% lower risk of a second stroke.

Dr Ali Sheffeh, an internal medicine physician and research scholar at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and lead researcher said, “Unfortunately, a quarter of people who survive a stroke will have another stroke, and they are also at risk for other cardiovascular events such as a heart attack since many of the risk factors of a stroke are also associated with other forms of heart disease.”

Sheffeh in a news release added, “Managing these risks, as well as looking at novel approaches to help lower the chances of another stroke, heart attack or death among this population are all critical steps in increasing stroke survival and improving the quality of life for people who have had a stroke.”

For the study, researchers reviewed medical records for more than 7,000 adults treated for strokes caused by blood clots between January 2000 and June 2022 in Minnesota or Wisconsin. The team looked specifically at the potential benefits that might come from taking either a GLP-1 or SGLT2 drug after a stroke.

The researchers found that the death rate in stroke survivors who took either a GLP-1 or SGLT2 drug was under 12%, compared with 54% among patients who didn’t take either drug. The rate of heart attacks among patients taking either of the medications was 1.5%, compared to 6% among patients taking neither.

Sheffeh said, “The results of the study are consistent with other research about the preventive role of these medications against cardiovascular disease in people with obesity or heart failure.”

Dr Cheryl Bushnell, vice chair of neurology research at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C., said in a news release, “For several years now, we have seen from randomized controlled trials that SGLT2 inhibitors and GLP-1 receptor agonists have the ability to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, which includes stroke, heart attack and death.”

Bushnell added, “These new findings are in line with what we would expect, and we have seen that these outcomes are evident in patients with Type 2 diabetes and obesity and in patients with obesity without Type 2 diabetes.”

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