The concept was so tantalizing. Medicine within the GLP-1 class, which incorporates Wegovy and Ozempic, have proved miraculous in treating weight reduction and different illnesses. And a few researchers hoped that the medication may additionally assist with a few of the most troublesome illnesses to deal with — these of the mind, like Parkinson’s.
However now, at the least for Parkinson’s, that hope appears dimmed. A rigorous examine 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. Irrespective of how the researchers sliced the information the outcomes had been the identical.
The examine, revealed Tuesday in The Lancet, is dangerous information for the half million People who’ve been recognized with Parkinson’s illness. Signs embrace tremors, stiffness and problem with steadiness. Sufferers additionally could develop dementia. Remedies, together with drugs and deep mind stimulation, may also help with signs. However no therapy has been proven to gradual the illness’s progress.
“It’s massively disappointing,” mentioned Dr. Thomas Foltynie of College School London, who led the trial. “We had been anticipating we’d come by way of and we’d get a optimistic outcome.”
Parkinson’s specialists shared his sentiment.
“This can be a sobering second,” mentioned Dr. Michael S. Okun, a Parkinson’s illness professional on the College of Florida and the nationwide medical adviser for the Parkinson’s Basis. “This can be a very well completed examine and it got here up empty-handed.”
The discovering could have implications for researchers who’re asking if the newer GLP-1 medication may assist gradual the course of Alzheimer’s or may stop the illness.
The brand new examine concerned 194 individuals with Parkinson’s illness handled at six analysis hospitals within the U.Ok. The sufferers had been randomly assigned to inject themselves as soon as per week for 96 weeks with exenatide, a sort 2 diabetes therapy made by AstraZeneca and bought underneath 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 known as GLP-1s. Exenatide isn’t as highly effective in eliciting weight reduction because the newer medication, however specialists say there isn’t any purpose to consider that the newer medication would carry out otherwise in research of mind illness.
The outcomes, researchers mentioned, are particularly disappointing as a result of there have been solutions that GLP-1 medication may assist Parkinson’s sufferers.
GLP-1 medication protected neurons from injury in laboratory research and in a examine with rats given a mind damage like that in Parkinson’s illness.
It started to look that the outcomes may also apply to sufferers.
“Folks began digging into claims databases,” Dr. Okun mentioned, explaining that researchers had examined massive databases exhibiting medication that folks took and their diagnoses. The researchers requested if sufferers who had taken GLP-1s may be much less more likely to get Parkinson’s or, if they’d it, would have a illness that progressed extra slowly.
The outcomes had been promising.
They appeared at epidemiological research. They discovered that folks with diabetes who took GLP-1s had been much less more likely to have Parkinson’s.
Then two small research prompt that exenatide may gradual the development of some Parkinson’s signs over a 12 months’s time.
Persevering with the hints of progress, a bigger however nonetheless preliminary examine, revealed final 12 months within the New England Journal of Medication, discovered {that a} GLP-1 that’s not in the marketplace — lixisenatide — appeared to barely gradual progress of the illness over a 12 months.
Dr. Okun, on the time, mentioned that the outcome was “nibbling on the edges of illness modification.”
“What we had final 12 months was a one-year trial and a small sign,” mentioned Dr. David Standaert, a Parkinson’s researcher on the College of Alabama at Birmingham. “What would occur when you went longer? Effectively, that is longer and there’s simply not a lot right here.”
The issue with finding out GLP-1s in Parkinson’s illness, Dr. Standaert mentioned, is that what exenatide is meant to be doing within the mind isn’t clear.
“I wouldn’t do one other examine like this until you study what’s the goal,” Dr. Standaert mentioned. “What’s the biochemistry you are attempting to alter within the mind? How do these medication work, anyway?”
