The thought was so tantalizing. Medication within the GLP-1 class, which incorporates Wegovy and Ozempic, have proved miraculous in treating weight reduction and different ailments. And a few researchers hoped that the medicine may additionally assist with among the most tough ailments to deal with — these of the mind, like Parkinson’s.
However now, no less than for Parkinson’s, that hope appears dimmed. A rigorous research that randomly assigned Parkinson’s sufferers to take exenatide, a relative of Ozempic, confirmed completely no profit or slowing of the course of the degenerative illness after 96 weeks.
And there have been no impact on affected person signs, no impact on mind scans, no subgroup that confirmed any profit. Regardless of how the researchers sliced the info the outcomes have been the identical.
The research, printed Tuesday in The Lancet, is dangerous information for the half million Individuals who’ve been identified with Parkinson’s illness. Signs embrace tremors, stiffness and issue with stability. Sufferers additionally might develop dementia. Remedies, together with drugs and deep mind stimulation, may also help with signs. However no therapy has been proven to sluggish the illness’s progress.
“It’s vastly disappointing,” stated Dr. Thomas Foltynie of College School London, who led the trial. “We have been anticipating we might come by way of and we’d get a constructive consequence.”
Parkinson’s specialists shared his sentiment.
“This can be a sobering second,” stated Dr. Michael S. Okun, a Parkinson’s illness knowledgeable on the College of Florida and the nationwide medical adviser for the Parkinson’s Basis. “This can be a rather well carried out research and it got here up empty-handed.”
The discovering might have implications for researchers who’re asking if the newer GLP-1 medicine may assist sluggish the course of Alzheimer’s or may stop the illness.
The brand new research concerned 194 individuals with Parkinson’s illness handled at six analysis hospitals within the U.Ok. The sufferers have been randomly assigned to inject themselves as soon as per week for 96 weeks with exenatide, a kind 2 diabetes therapy made by AstraZeneca and bought beneath the model identify Byetta, or with a placebo. The trial was funded by Britain’s Nationwide Institute for Well being and Care Analysis with help for substudies from the charity Treatment Parkinson’s and the Van Andel Institute.
The drug is in the identical class as Ozempic and Wegovy and, like them, lowers blood sugar ranges. All are so-called GLP-1 receptor agonists, generally referred to as GLP-1s. Exenatide isn’t as highly effective in eliciting weight reduction because the newer medicine, however specialists say there isn’t a purpose to imagine that the more moderen medicine would carry out otherwise in research of mind illness.
The outcomes, researchers stated, are particularly disappointing as a result of there have been recommendations that GLP-1 medicine would possibly assist Parkinson’s sufferers.
GLP-1 medicine protected neurons from injury in laboratory research and in a research with rats given a mind damage like that in Parkinson’s illness.
It started to appear that the outcomes may additionally apply to sufferers.
“Folks began digging into claims databases,” Dr. Okun stated, explaining that researchers had examined giant databases exhibiting medicine that folks took and their diagnoses. The researchers requested if sufferers who had taken GLP-1s could be much less more likely to get Parkinson’s or, if that they had it, would have a illness that progressed extra slowly.
The outcomes have been promising.
They regarded at epidemiological research. They discovered that folks with diabetes who took GLP-1s have been much less more likely to have Parkinson’s.
Then two small research prompt that exenatide would possibly sluggish the development of some Parkinson’s signs over a yr’s time.
Persevering with the hints of progress, a bigger however nonetheless preliminary research, printed final yr within the New England Journal of Medication, discovered {that a} GLP-1 that’s now not in the marketplace — lixisenatide — appeared to barely sluggish progress of the illness over a yr.
Dr. Okun, on the time, stated that the consequence was “nibbling on the edges of illness modification.”
“What we had final yr was a one-year trial and a small sign,” stated Dr. David Standaert, a Parkinson’s researcher on the College of Alabama at Birmingham. “What would occur for those who went longer? Properly, that is longer and there’s simply not a lot right here.”
The issue with learning GLP-1s in Parkinson’s illness, Dr. Standaert stated, is that what exenatide is meant to be doing within the mind isn’t clear.
“I wouldn’t do one other research like this until you be taught what’s the goal,” Dr. Standaert stated. “What’s the biochemistry you are attempting to vary within the mind? How do these medicine work, anyway?”
