The thought was so tantalizing. Medicine 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 medicine might additionally assist with a number of the most troublesome illnesses to deal with — these of the mind, like Parkinson’s.
However now, at the 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. Regardless of how the researchers sliced the information the outcomes have been the identical.
The examine, printed Tuesday in The Lancet, is unhealthy information for the half million People who’ve been recognized with Parkinson’s illness. Signs embody tremors, stiffness and problem with steadiness. Sufferers additionally could develop dementia. Therapies, together with drugs and deep mind stimulation, can assist with signs. However no therapy has been proven to gradual the illness’s progress.
“It’s massively disappointing,” mentioned Dr. Thomas Foltynie of College Faculty London, who led the trial. “We have been anticipating we’d come via and we might get a constructive end result.”
Parkinson’s specialists shared his sentiment.
“This can be 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. “This can be a very well executed examine and it got here up empty-handed.”
The discovering could have implications for researchers who’re asking if the newer GLP-1 medicine might assist gradual the course of Alzheimer’s or might stop the illness.
The brand new examine concerned 194 folks with Parkinson’s illness handled at six analysis hospitals within the U.Ok. The sufferers have been randomly assigned to inject themselves as soon as every week for 96 weeks with exenatide, a sort 2 diabetes therapy made by AstraZeneca and bought below 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 medicine, however specialists say there is no such thing as a motive to imagine that the newer medicine would carry out otherwise in research of mind illness.
The outcomes, researchers mentioned, are particularly disappointing as a result of there have been options that GLP-1 medicine would possibly assist Parkinson’s sufferers.
GLP-1 medicine 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 appear that the outcomes may also apply to sufferers.
“Individuals began digging into claims databases,” Dr. Okun mentioned, explaining that researchers had examined massive databases displaying medicine that individuals took and their diagnoses. The researchers requested if sufferers who had taken GLP-1s is perhaps much less prone to get Parkinson’s or, if that they had it, would have a illness that progressed extra slowly.
The outcomes have been promising.
They appeared at epidemiological research. They discovered that individuals with diabetes who took GLP-1s have been much less prone to have Parkinson’s.
Then two small research steered 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 examine, printed final yr within the New England Journal of Medication, 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 finding out 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 examine like this except you study what’s the goal,” Dr. Standaert mentioned. “What’s the biochemistry you are attempting to alter within the mind? How do these medicine work, anyway?”