The concept 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 medication may additionally assist with a number of the most troublesome 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. Irrespective of how the researchers sliced the info the outcomes had been the identical.
The research, revealed Tuesday in The Lancet, is dangerous information for the half million Individuals who’ve been identified with Parkinson’s illness. Signs embody tremors, stiffness and issue with stability. Sufferers additionally might develop dementia. Remedies, together with drugs and deep mind stimulation, might help with signs. However no remedy has been proven to gradual the illness’s progress.
“It’s vastly disappointing,” mentioned Dr. Thomas Foltynie of College School London, who led the trial. “We had been anticipating we might come by and we’d 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 skilled on the College of Florida and the nationwide medical adviser for the Parkinson’s Basis. “It is 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 medication may assist gradual the course of Alzheimer’s or may forestall the illness.
The brand new research concerned 194 folks with Parkinson’s illness handled at six analysis hospitals within the U.Okay. The sufferers had been randomly assigned to inject themselves as soon as per week for 96 weeks with exenatide, a kind 2 diabetes remedy made by AstraZeneca and offered underneath the model title 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 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 referred to as GLP-1s. Exenatide just isn’t as highly effective in eliciting weight reduction because the newer medication, however specialists say there is no such thing as a cause to consider that the more moderen medication would carry out in a different way in research of mind illness.
The outcomes, researchers mentioned, are particularly disappointing as a result of there have been options that GLP-1 medication would possibly assist Parkinson’s sufferers.
GLP-1 medication protected neurons from harm in laboratory research and in a research 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 displaying medication that folks 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 that they had it, would have a illness that progressed extra slowly.
The outcomes had been promising.
They seemed at epidemiological research. They discovered that folks with diabetes who took GLP-1s had been much less prone to have Parkinson’s.
Then two small research recommended that exenatide would possibly gradual the development of some Parkinson’s signs over a yr’s time.
Persevering with the hints of progress, a bigger however nonetheless preliminary research, revealed final yr within the New England Journal of Drugs, discovered {that a} GLP-1 that’s not available on the market — lixisenatide — appeared to barely gradual progress of the illness over a yr.
Dr. Okun, on the time, mentioned that the end result was “nibbling on the edges of illness modification.”
“What we had final yr 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 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 mentioned, is that what exenatide is meant to be doing within the mind just isn’t clear.
“I wouldn’t do one other research like this until you be taught 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?”