The weight-loss drug Ozempic can help reduce stroke patients’ risk of a heart attack or death, a new study says.

GLP-1 weight-loss drugs like Ozempic or SGLT2 diabetes medications like Jardiance or Farxiga both helped protect the health of people following a stroke, researchers found.

Patients taking either 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, results show.

SGLT2 drugs also were associated with a 67% lower risk of a second stroke, researchers report.

“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,” said lead researcher Dr. Ali Sheffeh, an internal medicine physician and research scholar at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

“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,” Sheffeh added in a news release.

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.

GLP-1 drugs help manage diabetes and promote weight loss by mimicking the GLP-1 hormone, which works to control insulin and blood sugar levels, decrease appetite and slow digestion.

SGLT2 drugs lower blood sugar levels by causing the kidneys to filter excess sugar from the body and excrete it in urine, researchers said in background notes.

The death rate among 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, researchers found.

The rate of heart attacks among patients taking either medication was 1.5%, compared to 6% among patients taking neither, results show.

“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,” Sheffeh said.

American Heart Association stroke expert Dr. Cheryl Bushnell said the findings jibe with what is known about the benefits of the two types of medication.

“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, vice chair of neurology research at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C., said in a news release.

“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,” Bushnell added.

GLP-1 drugs not only promote weight loss, they’ve also been shown to help lower blood pressure and decrease the formation of plaques that clog arteries, Bushnell said. Both are risk factors for heart attack and stroke.

“Another mechanism that could be very important for this current study is that GLP-1 receptor agonists can actually decrease clumping of blood platelets, and that, in itself, could decrease the risk of clotting and lead to a lower risk of stroke,” Bushnell said.

“We need a clinical trial to know whether these SGLT2 inhibitors and GLP-1 receptor agonists could actually change practice, how we can help patients to prevent a second or recurrent stroke,” Bushnell added. “These medications could be really important, however, we just don’t have that data yet.”

Researchers presented the findings at the American Heart Association’s annual meeting in Chicago.

Because these findings were presented at a medical meeting, they should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

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