MILLIONS of people should get weight loss injections to protect their hearts, says a leading doctor.
Professor John Deanfield’s call came after a trial found that taking semaglutide reduced the chances of premature death, heart attack or stroke by 20% for overweight people with heart problems.
And the injections improved heart health even though patients in the three-year study didn’t lose weight.
The drug, used in fat injection brands Ozempic and Wegovy, could also be the biggest breakthrough for the heart since cholesterol-fighting statins in the 1990s, according to Professor Deanfield of University College London.
He told the European Congress on Obesity in Italy that around four million overweight people with heart problems in the UK could benefit.
The professor, an NHS cardiologist in London, said: “We are focusing on weight loss, but something else is happening that benefits the cardiovascular system.
“This is the kind of thing we had with statins in the 1990s.
“We finally discovered that there was a class of drugs that would change the biology of this disease.”
Seven to eight million people in the UK take statins to lower cholesterol or reduce heart problems.
Professor Deanfield said weight loss injections could be routinely prescribed in the same way.
- NEW Retrofit weight-loss drug has been called the “Godzilla” of fat injections after a trial showed slimming people lost up to 29% of their body weight in a year.
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