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 illnesses. And a few researchers hoped that the medication may additionally assist with among the most tough illnesses to deal with — these of the mind, like Parkinson’s.
However now, at the very 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 info the outcomes had been the identical.
The examine, printed 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 stability. Sufferers additionally might develop dementia. Therapies, together with medicines and deep mind stimulation, will help with signs. However no therapy has been proven to sluggish the illness’s progress.
“It’s massively disappointing,” stated Dr. Thomas Foltynie of College Faculty London, who led the trial. “We had been anticipating we might come by way of and we might get a optimistic outcome.”
Parkinson’s specialists shared his sentiment.
“This can be a sobering second,” stated Dr. Michael S. Okun, a Parkinson’s illness knowledgeable on the College of Florida and the nationwide medical adviser for the Parkinson’s Basis. “This can be a very well carried out examine 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 sluggish the course of Alzheimer’s or may forestall the illness.
The brand new examine 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 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 referred to as GLP-1s. Exenatide just isn’t as highly effective in eliciting weight reduction because the newer medication, however specialists say there isn’t any purpose to imagine that the newer medication would carry out in a different way in research of mind illness.
The outcomes, researchers stated, 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 harm in laboratory research and in a examine with rats given a mind damage like that in Parkinson’s illness.
It started to appear that the outcomes may also apply to sufferers.
“Folks began digging into claims databases,” Dr. Okun stated, explaining that researchers had examined massive databases displaying 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 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 individuals with diabetes who took GLP-1s had been much less prone to have Parkinson’s.
Then two small research advised that exenatide may sluggish the development of some Parkinson’s signs over a yr’s time.
Persevering with the hints of progress, a bigger however nonetheless preliminary examine, printed final yr within the New England Journal of Medication, discovered {that a} GLP-1 that’s now not in the marketplace — lixisenatide — appeared to barely sluggish progress of the illness over a yr.
Dr. Okun, on the time, stated that the outcome was “nibbling on the edges of illness modification.”
“What we had final yr was a one-year trial and a small sign,” stated Dr. David Standaert, a Parkinson’s researcher on the College of Alabama at Birmingham. “What would occur for those who 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 stated, is that what exenatide is meant to be doing within the mind just isn’t clear.
“I wouldn’t do one other examine like this except you be taught what’s the goal,” Dr. Standaert stated. “What’s the biochemistry you are attempting to vary within the mind? How do these medication work, anyway?”
