Weight-loss drugs could prevent fatal complications from heart attacks, UK study finds

Weight-loss drugs could help people who have had a heart attack avoid suffering potentially fatal complications afterwards, research has found.

Drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy reduce the risk of the tissue damage that affects up to half of the 100,000 people a year in the UK who suffer a heart attack, according to the study.

The researchers, experts in heart health, concluded that GLP-1 weight-loss drugs “could offer a promising new therapeutic approach for improving heart attack recovery”.

The drugs are already known to lower the risk of someone having a heart attack or stroke. But this is the first time they have been repurposed to treat this common complication of a heart attack.

Dr Svetlana Mastitskaya, the study’s lead author, said the results were so encouraging that they could help pave the way for paramedics giving the drugs to heart attack patients they treat.

“In nearly half of all heart attack patients, tiny blood vessels within the heart remain narrowed, even after the main artery is cleared during emergency treatment.

“This results in a complication known as ‘no-reflow’, where blood is unable to reach certain parts of the heart tissue”, said Mastitskaya, a senior lecturer at Bristol University’s medical school.

No-reflow increases the risk of someone dying or being readmitted to hospital for further treatment for heart failure within a year of their heart attack. “But our latest findings are surprising in that we have found GLP-1 drugs may prevent this problem,” she added.

However, the results are based on animal model trials so further studies involving humans would need to occur and show the same benefits before GLP-1s could be used on people.

The British Heart Foundation funded the trial, which also involved experts from University College London. The results are published in Nature Communications.

The study co-lead Prof David Attwell of UCL said GLP-1s offer “a potentially life-saving solution” for those who experience no-reflow.

Mastitskaya told PA Media that “the drugs can be given by paramedics attending the patient even on the way to the hospital and/or during surgical reopening of the occluded artery”, though added that clinical trials were needed first.

It is unknown why no-reflow happens so often after a heart attack, despite treatment.

“This research suggests that mimicking the action of the GLP‑1 hormone may have potential to improve blood flow through microvessels and perhaps one day could have a role in heart attack treatment. This will require detailed studies in humans and clinical trials first,” said Prof Bryan Williams, the BHF’s chief scientific and medical officer.

“Large clinical trials of GLP‑1 medicines, such as Ozempic and Wegovy, have shown benefits on heart health beyond weight loss. But how they produce these effects has remained unclear. This fascinating study offers one possible explanation, suggesting that they may help to improve blood flow through the heart’s smallest blood vessels.”