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 illnesses. And a few researchers hoped that the medication might additionally assist with a number of the most tough illnesses to deal with — these of the mind, like Parkinson’s.
However now, no less than 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 info the outcomes had been the identical.
The examine, printed Tuesday in The Lancet, is unhealthy information for the half million People who’ve been identified with Parkinson’s illness. Signs embrace tremors, stiffness and problem with stability. Sufferers additionally could develop dementia. Remedies, together with drugs and deep mind stimulation, might help with signs. However no remedy has been proven to sluggish the illness’s progress.
“It’s vastly disappointing,” mentioned Dr. Thomas Foltynie of College Faculty London, who led the trial. “We had been anticipating we’d come via and we might get a constructive end result.”
Parkinson’s specialists shared his sentiment.
“It is 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. “It is a rather well achieved examine and it got here up empty-handed.”
The discovering could have implications for researchers who’re asking if the newer GLP-1 medication might assist sluggish the course of Alzheimer’s or might forestall the illness.
The brand new examine concerned 194 folks 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 every week for 96 weeks with exenatide, a sort 2 diabetes remedy made by AstraZeneca and bought beneath the model title Byetta, or with a placebo. The trial was funded by Britain’s Nationwide Institute for Well being and Care Analysis with assist for substudies from the charity Remedy 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 will not be as highly effective in eliciting weight reduction because the newer medication, however specialists say there isn’t any motive to imagine 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 ideas 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 additionally apply to sufferers.
“Individuals began digging into claims databases,” Dr. Okun mentioned, explaining that researchers had examined massive databases exhibiting medication that individuals took and their diagnoses. The researchers requested if sufferers who had taken GLP-1s may be much less prone to get Parkinson’s or, if they’d it, would have a illness that progressed extra slowly.
The outcomes had been promising.
They checked out epidemiological research. They discovered that individuals with diabetes who took GLP-1s had been much less prone to have Parkinson’s.
Then two small research instructed that exenatide may sluggish 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, printed final 12 months within the New England Journal of Drugs, discovered {that a} GLP-1 that’s now not available on the market — lixisenatide — appeared to barely sluggish progress of the illness over a 12 months.
Dr. Okun, on the time, mentioned that the end result 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 if you happen to 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 mentioned, is that what exenatide is meant to be doing within the mind will not be clear.
“I wouldn’t do one other examine like this except you be taught what’s the goal,” Dr. Standaert mentioned. “What’s the biochemistry you are attempting to vary within the mind? How do these medication work, anyway?”
