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In an intriguing new study, the active ingredient in Ozempic was found to be so effective at treating arthritis that participants no longer needed treatment by the end of the experiment.
In writeups of the new research in the journal Nature and the New York Times, experts waxed prolific about the landmark new semaglutide study that saw marked improvements to knee osteoarthritis in trials conducted in 11 countries.
Dr. Bob Carter, the deputy director of the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases who was not involved in the new study published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, said that the improvements in knee pain in the overweight arthritic trial patents were incredible.
“The magnitude of the improvement is of a scope we haven’t seen before with a drug,” Carter told the NYT. “They had an almost 50 percent reduction in their knee pain. That’s huge.”
Danish rheumatologist and lead trial director Henning Bliddal told Nature that by the end of the trial, many patients experienced such improvement in their knee arthritis that they were no longer eligible for the study.
“They got a therapy that was so effective that they more or less were treated out of the study,” said Bliddal, who works at the Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark’s capital.
While it’s well-established that losing weight can help improve knee arthritis by essentially taking some of the load off the affected area, the findings are particularly promising due in part to the difficulty exercising people with intense knee pain experience.
In the study — which it’s worth noting was sponsored by Ozempic and Wegovy manufacturer Novo Nordisk — 400 patients on five continents were given weekly injections of either a placebo or semaglutide. All of those patients, Nature explains, were considered obese and had an average score of 71 on a pain scale from one to 100, which made it hurt for them to walk.
Unsurprisingly, the patients taking the active semaglutide lost way more weight than their placebo counterparts — but they also experienced dramatic reductions in their pain scales, with an average drop of 42 points as compared to the placebo group’s 28. They also experienced more ease of everyday mobility too, such as in climbing stairs.
While the paper’s authors note that many of those improvements were due to taking weight off the affected knees, they also postulate that semaglutide’s known anti-inflammatory effects played a role as well.
Despite these auspicious findings, the study’s lead trial director is worried that once people go off semaglutide-based drugs, the weight regain may also bring back some of the associated arthritis pain.
“Do these guys go on with semaglutide forever?” Bliddal asked when speaking to Nature.
Right now, it’s hard to say — but if nothing else, this is another feather in the cap of these seemingly world-changing drugs.
More on off-label semaglutide uses: Ozempic Could Be Used to Treat Alcohol and Drug Addiction, Study Finds
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