Novo Nordisk’s obesity drug, Wegovy, significantly reduced the risk of heart attacks in a study that says the treatment has more health benefits than weight loss, Reuters reports.

The company said on Saturday that its wildly popular obesity treatment Wegovy benefits heart health more than just because it helps you lose weight, according to new data presented at a major medical meeting on Saturday.

Preliminary data from a Danish drugmaker study published in August showed that Wegovy, which was shown to help patients lose an average of 15% of their weight, also reduced heart attacks, strokes and deaths from heart disease by 20%. .

The full study results, presented at the American Heart Association’s annual scientific meeting in Philadelphia and published in the New England Journal of Medicine, suggest that the drug has other beneficial effects beyond the known health benefits of weight loss.

According to the researchers, the difference in heart attack risk between patients who received Wegovy, known chemically as semaglutide, and those who received a placebo began to appear almost immediately after starting treatment.

In a study of overweight and obese patients based on body mass index who already had heart disease but not diabetes, Wegovy reduced the risk of nonfatal heart attack by 28%, nonfatal stroke by 7%, and death from a heart problem by 15% compared with placebo .

Patients treated with Wegovy showed reductions in C-reactive protein, a marker of inflammation, similar to those reported with cholesterol-lowering statins, which are known to significantly reduce heart risks, the researchers reported.

“The cardiovascular benefit (from Wegovy) is a combination of many factors, but I would emphasize glycemic (blood sugar) control, weight loss and reduced inflammation,” Martin Lange, Novo’s chief development officer, said in an interview. Nordisk.

In a study of 17,604 patients that lasted an average of 33 months, almost 1,500 of those taking Wegovy stopped treatment because of side effects, mainly gastrointestinal disturbances such as nausea and vomiting, compared with 718 patients taking placebo , according to the study.