Ozempic does not slow Alzheimer's, study finds

https://www.semafor.com/article/11/25/2025/ozempic-does-not-slow-alzheimers-study-finds

46•danso•1h ago

Comments

wonderwonder•1h ago

I would think eventually all of the additional positives of the drug will resolve to obesity is bad and reducing obesity has health benefits. Which should be perfectly fine as its valid and results in massive positives in both health and quality of life.

estearum•47m ago

We already know that's not the case though. A huge portion of the benefits are downstream of obesity, yes, but we already know GLPs have positive effects even without weight loss.

flir•42m ago

Nah, obesity reduction is itself a downstream effect of messing with neurotransmitters. There have to be other consequences of that - both good and bad.

estearum•35m ago

There don't have to be any other consequences, certainly not both good and bad ones. Biology doesn't actually have some scale of justice that means good things must be offset by bad things.

But yes, it's very probable (in fact we already know) the drug is doing several things in the body.

flir•6m ago

I was more thinking that evolved systems rarely have convenient switches you can flip and just get a single outcome. You perturb the system, and you get a cascade of changes. It's not like engineering.

Nothing about justice was implied, so lets say desirable and undesirable instead of good and bad.

astura•11m ago

>eventually all of the additional positives of the drug will resolve to obesity is bad and reducing obesity has health benefits.

This is not true.

Ozempic appears to affect the brain's rewards system and its known to decreased cravings and urges for a range of behaviors, from alcohol consumption and smoking to gambling and shopping to nail biting and skin picking. Those have nothing to do with obesity or weight loss.

KittenInABox•1h ago

Why would Ozempic, a chemical affecting a specific receptor found in specific parts of the body, affect alzheimer's? I'm just asking questions here I don't understand what the mechanism of action is that this would be disappointing news.

jfarina•58m ago

Maybe because poor diet has been linked to alzheimers?

foobiekr•57m ago

"Type 3 diabetes" is one of the speculated causes of alzheimer's. The evidence there is not great.

delichon•38m ago

Fixing type 1 or 2 diabetes does not fix the damage they already did either.

devmor•57m ago

It was correlated to lower Dementia rates in a past study. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13872877251351329

KittenInABox•54m ago

Thanks, I wasn't aware of this. Do we know how?

scarmig•49m ago

I don't think there's a confirmed mechanism (or even whether the fact that it does prevent dementia is a confirmed fact).

But you could speculate that obesity -> cardiovascular issues -> neurological damage, and that could explain things.

kaonwarb•20m ago

We unfortunate know very little about how dementia / Alzheimer's develop in the first place.

rtkwe•12m ago

Generally this is the answer when there's an announcement like this. Some early paper or analysis showed some (often weak) correlation between $new_drug and $scary_disease/$scary_disorder. Doctors and scientists go off and study that in more depth with better controls or more data points and we learn a little more about the world, if you miss the initial paper(s) the follow up can seem a little random.

clickety_clack•53m ago

I know we can tell that a chemical does a particular thing in the body, but can we tell that it does not do anything other than that thing? The body is ridiculously complex, and as far as I know we don’t know how every part (or combination of parts) works.

Edit: I mean in the theoretical “this targets the x receptor” kind of way, not in “we tested this and found no causal link” way.

KittenInABox•51m ago

That's why I'm genuinely asking why this would be disappointing, like what was the evidence that this does affect Alzheimer's. You would expect by X does not affect Y by default, so clearly there had to be a theory why you'd spend 2 years on a study to rule it out.

habinero•44m ago

Ozempic is a diabetes drug, and there's a hypothesis that Alzheimer's is really a form of diabetes.

twosdai•43m ago

This is anecdotal, I don't have proof but it's something I think is somewhat related. Is that obesity and nuerodegenerative diseases are somewhat related. So that's a guess as to why some people might have though a weight loss drug would potentially be related in some way with alzheimers.

This could just be false though, I can't recall where I heard this information. So do some searching before quoting me.

readthenotes1•50m ago

It's disappointing to the manufacturers and consumers because many boomers are taking it already to treat 40+ years of poor and/or indulgent consumption (and more will now that they've negotiated a price reduction).

Glp-1 drugs inhibit drinking and compulsive behaviors and I'm not sure the mechanism of action is known

red_hare•40m ago

The article describes data showing a correlation between Ozempic use and slowed progression of certain brain conditions. The study aimed to determine whether that effect came from Ozempic itself or simply from weight loss. Once researchers controlled for weight loss, the effect disappeared. In other words, correlation, not causation.

cyberax•24m ago

Since Ozempic was the primary reason for the weight loss, it's still causation. Although indirect.

francisofascii•10m ago

[delayed]

JoshTriplett•38m ago

As I understand it, one of the reasons GLP-1 agonists seem to affect so many different things is that evolutionarily, it does not seem at all surprising that a huge number of things are hooked on the hungry/full signal.

monero-xmr•21m ago

Generally being obese causes a huge amount of issues, and skinny people who never exercise basically waste away. Notice the absurd number of young, frail people with canes and masks. They are often suffering from non-specific ailments like “long covid” that would be solved if they started an aerobic and strength training regimen.

lghh•19m ago

> Notice the absurd number of young, frail people with canes and masks.

I don't notice them. Do you have numbers to back this up?

> that would be solved if they started an aerobic and strength training regimen.

Source?

zoklet-enjoyer•7m ago

Yeah I have no idea what he's talking about either

GuB-42•25m ago

Source: https://www.novonordisk.com/news-and-media/news-and-ir-mater...

Ongoing study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39780249/

Usual rant to news outlets: Cite your damn sources! (if they are public, which is the case here). This is a web page, not printed paper, web pages support links, links are not just for ads!

OptionOfT•15m ago

But but but we have to keep traffic on our website! Engagement!

That's why when you click on a link you see 1/10th of the article, and then a video, and 3 other irrelevant inlays for other links.

Oh and the video auto plays with sound.

And every word in the article that is remotely a 'tag' links to other parts of the website.

codedokode•13m ago

> video auto plays with sound.

Without sound in Firefox, I assume?

megaman821•17m ago

I can't remember the source, but I think this only rules out small-dose, oral. There will still be a trial with large-dose, injectable.

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Comments

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