The majority of Britain’s one million patients living with debilitating heart failure could be offered a controversial weight loss jab from next month.
Key results from a trial were released last night showing that the drug tirzepatide reduces the risk of death or worsening of the disease by more than a third, making it the first drug to have a significant impact on the most common of the condition.
Experts immediately hailed it as a “new cornerstone of treatment”, adding that the injections had the potential to reduce the number of hospital admissions for heart failure by tens of thousands, saving vital money for the NHS and easing the agony of patients. patients and their families.
Tirzepatide, sold under the brand name Mounjaro, is part of a new generation of weight loss drugs that have transformed the treatment of obesity and its related diseases.
In early trials, patients taking it lost 20 percent of their body weight, leading doctors to dub it the “King Kong” of slimming drugs.
It has already received the backing of Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who last month announced a five-year deal worth £279 million with manufacturer Eli Lilly to supply thousands of doses to the NHS.
Streeting said he plans to offer the jabs to the unemployed, to see if losing weight could improve their job prospects.
The NHS spending watchdog approved tirzepatide in June for diabetics and is expected to give it the green light for weight loss next month, at which point cardiologists will be able to prescribe it to most heart failure patients.
Tirzepatide is expected to get the green light for weight loss next month, at which point cardiologists will be able to prescribe it to most heart failure patients.
Volunteers in the three-year trial had heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, or HFpEF, which is caused by obesity and accounts for up to 70 percent of heart failure cases.
Despite the large number of patients, until now there has been very little that doctors could offer to improve patients’ chances, as drugs that work in other types of heart failure have little effect. All patients in the trial lost weight, but benefits were seen after just three months, leading experts to conclude that the drug must have effects beyond helping to lose weight.
“What’s really impressive is the magnitude of the effect,” said Dr. Milton Packer, a heart failure expert and visiting professor at Imperial College, who led the study.
“Other medications to treat heart failure offer a 13 to 18 percent reduction in the risk of worsening the disease,” he said. “Tirzepatide offers a 38 percent reduction, and I think that’s because it addresses the root cause of the disease.”
Heart failure is an incurable disease in which the heart stops pumping as well as it should.
Symptoms include extreme shortness of breath and life-ruining fatigue, and only half of patients live more than five years after their diagnosis.
It can be triggered by a heart attack, blocked arteries and genetics, but obesity is believed to be a major factor in almost all cases. Pockets of fat are thought to accumulate around internal organs, releasing inflammatory compounds that damage the heart.
In the trial, researchers found that tirzepatide reduced levels of inflammatory proteins in the body, a sign, they said, that it was having an effect beyond simple weight loss.
The number of patients with heart failure has increased over recent decades, with 200,000 new cases and 100,000 related emergency hospital admissions in the UK each year.
The findings come after tirzepatide was linked to the death of a British nurse earlier this month. It is believed to be the first death officially attributed to drugs in the UK.
Now Ozempic could come as a patch
For one in ten users of the weight loss drug Ozempic, weekly injections can be traumatic and painful.
Now scientists have developed a skin patch that does the same job but without any discomfort. And you only have to change it once a month.
The patch, which is placed on the upper arm, is filled with hundreds of tiny “microneedles” that pierce the skin, allowing the drug to seep into the body, but not go so deep as to touch the nerves and cause pain. .
The UK has the highest obesity rates in Europe. The emergence of Ozempic has raised hopes of reducing health risks associated with obesity, such as heart disease and cancer.
The patch has been developed by researchers at the University of Connecticut in the United States.
Tests showed it delivered a steady stream of medication that lasted at least a month.
Scientists now plan to conduct clinical trials in obese patients.