The “Wegovy” brand weight loss syringe is sold in the Achat Pharmacy in Mitte. The “Wegovy” slimming injection has been available in Germany for a year.
Jens Kalaene | Picture Alliance | Getty Images
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Happy Thursday! It seems like new research emerges every week that shows additional health benefits of the weight loss drug Wegovy.
This time, Novo NordiskThe blockbuster treatment helped relieve knee pain in patients with a type of arthritis and obesity, according to a study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The study was funded by Novo Nordisk, which is conducting several studies on the other possible treatment uses of semaglutide, the active ingredient in Wegovy.
The results of the 68-week study could be a big deal for the Danish drugmaker: They could pave the way for regulatory approval of semaglutide to treat osteoarthritis, a degenerative joint disease that causes the cartilage and bone in your joints to break down with the be dismantled over time.
It would be a further expansion of the accepted uses for the blockbuster drug.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it is the most common type of arthritis, affecting about 33 million people in the United States. The condition is not a normal part of aging, but is common in adults ages 45 and older.
So how is the disease related to obesity? The risk of developing the disease is four times higher in people with obesity, said the study's lead author, Dr. Henning Bliddal, director and research professor at the Parker Institute in Denmark, in a statement.
Losing weight can help relieve symptoms of knee osteoarthritis, but maintaining these lifestyle changes can be challenging, Bliddal said. There are also not very many other effective treatments for the condition.
“There is a significant need for non-surgical and sustainable treatment options for people with obesity-related osteoarthritis,” Bliddal added.
Let's take a closer look at the trial.
These included around 400 patients with knee osteoarthritis. Participants were on average 56 years old and approximately 80% of the cohort were women, who suffer from osteoarthritis more often than men.
Patients received either a weekly injection of semaglutide or a placebo for 68 weeks. Everyone also received instructions on how to stick to a low-calorie diet and integrate exercise into their everyday lives.
Patients with osteoarthritis who dieted, exercised and took semaglutide lost more weight and reported greater reductions in knee pain than those who lost weight through diet and exercise alone. At the end of the study, participants who took semaglutide lost an average of nearly 14% of their body weight, or about 33 pounds, compared to just 3% for participants who received a placebo.
Changes in body weight were also associated with a reduction in pain, measured using a specific index that rates it on a scale of 0 to 100. On average, patients in the study started with an average pain score of 70.9.
Those who took semaglutide reported a significant reduction in pain – an average decrease of about 42 points – while those in the placebo group saw an average decrease of 27.5 points.
However, it is unclear whether semaglutide will have this benefit for all patients, such as those who are mildly obese or overweight. Most of the people participating in the study had a high BMI, so researchers need to extrapolate the results to other populations.
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Medicare Advantage is now a battleground on two fronts
Private Medicare Advantage plans have become a major source of conflict between major insurers – and it's now playing out on two fronts.
For one thing, they're fighting with the government over stricter quality ratings, creating a headwind for profits, while health insurers are seeing higher medical costs for their older members.
This creates a second problem: a battle royale between the major MA players and the hospitals where much of the increased spending occurs.
UnitedHealth is fighting on both fronts, suing the government over downgrading its plans' star quality ratings while raising a red flag against hospitals it says are “aggressively” upgrading their patients and thereby driving up medical costs.
Hospital operators Community Health, HCA and Tenet Health addressed what they called “more aggressive” pushbacks from some payers in their respective earnings calls.
Collective bargaining has become so acrimonious that more hospitals are threatening not to accept some providers' Medicare Advantage plans.
With more than half of seniors now on private Medicare Advantage plans, this combative trend could lead to increasing disruptions to their coverage.
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Latest Technology in Healthcare: Change Health breaches affected at least 100 million Americans
UnitedHealth Group's Change Healthcare broke a grim record last week: It officially became the largest healthcare data breach ever reported to federal regulators.
At least 100 million Americans were affected by the Change Healthcare cyberattack, according to an updated figure posted on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' privacy portal. The previous record was set by Anthem in 2015, when hackers compromised data on 78.8 million patients.
The number is roughly consistent with the estimate UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty told lawmakers in May, when he estimated that about a third of Americans were affected. The company began sending written notices to affected individuals in late July.
Change Healthcare offers payment and revenue cycle management tools for medical providers and payers, as well as other solutions such as electronic prescription software. In February, UnitedHealth announced that a cyber threat actor had breached part of the company's IT network.
UnitedHealth shut down the affected systems when the threat was detected, and the disruption caused a ripple effect across the U.S. healthcare sector. Many doctors were temporarily unable to fill prescriptions or get paid for their services, and some providers withdrew thousands of dollars from their savings to keep their doors open.
In the months following the breach, UnitedHealth paid a $22 million ransom to the hackers, struggled to bring systems back online and confirmed that files containing personal information were compromised in the attack.
The exact type of data exposed in the breach varies from person to person, according to UnitedHealth's website. This means that a mix of patient contact information, health insurance information, medical records, and billing and payment information could be accessed.
UnitedHealth is offering two years of free credit monitoring to protect against identity theft to people who believe they may be affected. Patients can contact a dedicated call center to inquire about these offerings or speak with a doctor who can offer them emotional support, the company said.
Patients should also watch for suspicious activity on their tax returns and benefit statements, as well as bank and credit card statements, according to UnitedHealth's website.
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