Type 2 Diabetes Drug Ozempic Could Delay Ageing, Researchers Believe

The infamous drug used to treat Type 2 diabetes and obesity “Ozempic” could also slow down the process of ageing, researchers believe.

Semaglutide, better known as Ozempic, gained notoriety when the lid was blown off it’s use as a favourite celebrity weight-loss medication.

However it is now back in the spotlight after Prof Harlan Krumholz, from the Yale School of Medicine, said the drug “has far-reaching benefits beyond what we initially imagined,” following the publication of several new studies.

“It’s not just avoiding heart attacks. These are health promoters. It wouldn’t surprise me that improving people’s health this way actually slows down the ageing process,” Prof Krumholz was quoted on Friday as telling the European Society of Cardiology Conference 2024

Select trials were conducted on 17,604 people aged 45 or older who were overweight or obese and had established cardiovascular disease but not diabetes. They received semaglutide or a placebo and were tracked for more than three years.

833 participants died during the study, of which 58% were related to cardiovascular causes and 42% from others. However, those who took semaglutide were less likely to die of infections than those in the placebo group while it also consistently reduced the risk of adverse cardiovascular outcomes, it was found.

In addition to delaying aging they also found that the drug could be used to treat a wide range of illnesses linked to heart failure, arthritis, Alzheimer’s and even cancer.