The concept 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 may additionally assist with a few of the most tough illnesses to deal with — these of the mind, like Parkinson’s.
However now, a minimum of for Parkinson’s, that hope appears dimmed. A rigorous research 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 have been the identical.
The research, revealed Tuesday in The Lancet, is dangerous information for the half million People who’ve been identified with Parkinson’s illness. Signs embrace tremors, stiffness and issue with steadiness. Sufferers additionally might develop dementia. Therapies, together with medicines and deep mind stimulation, might help with signs. However no remedy has been proven to sluggish the illness’s progress.
“It’s vastly disappointing,” mentioned Dr. Thomas Foltynie of College School London, who led the trial. “We have been anticipating we might come by and we might get a constructive outcome.”
Parkinson’s consultants shared his sentiment.
“It is a sobering second,” mentioned Dr. Michael S. Okun, a Parkinson’s illness professional on the College of Florida and the nationwide medical adviser for the Parkinson’s Basis. “It is a rather well finished research and it got here up empty-handed.”
The discovering might have implications for researchers who’re asking if the newer GLP-1 medicine may assist sluggish the course of Alzheimer’s or may stop the illness.
The brand new research 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 kind 2 diabetes remedy made by AstraZeneca and bought underneath 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 known as GLP-1s. Exenatide is just not as highly effective in eliciting weight reduction because the newer medicine, however consultants say there isn’t any cause to imagine that the newer medicine would carry out in another way in research of mind illness.
The outcomes, researchers mentioned, are particularly disappointing as a result of there have been options that GLP-1 medicine may assist Parkinson’s sufferers.
GLP-1 medicine protected neurons from harm in laboratory research and in a research with rats given a mind harm 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 mentioned, explaining that researchers had examined massive databases displaying medicine that folks took and their diagnoses. The researchers requested if sufferers who had taken GLP-1s could be much less more likely to get Parkinson’s or, if they’d it, would have a illness that progressed extra slowly.
The outcomes have been promising.
They seemed at epidemiological research. They discovered that folks with diabetes who took GLP-1s have been much less more likely 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 research, revealed final yr within the New England Journal of Drugs, discovered {that a} GLP-1 that’s not available on the market — lixisenatide — appeared to barely sluggish progress of the illness over a yr.
Dr. Okun, on the time, mentioned 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,” mentioned Dr. David Standaert, a Parkinson’s researcher on the College of Alabama at Birmingham. “What would occur in the event you went longer? Properly, that is longer and there’s simply not a lot right here.”
The issue with learning GLP-1s in Parkinson’s illness, Dr. Standaert mentioned, is that what exenatide is meant to be doing within the mind is just not clear.
“I wouldn’t do one other research like this until 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?”