Weight loss drugs open a new path against aging

BarcelonaTo the already known list of beneficial health effects of semaglutide medications, such as Ozempic or Wegovy, associated with weight loss and improved glucose control, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley (United States) have now added another: they could contribute to increasing longevity and, above all, quality of life. In a study with aging female mice that received semaglutide for three months, the researchers observed that the animals improved their physical, metabolic, and cognitive function and, furthermore, lived longer than those that did not receive this drug.

According to the researchers, although some of these effects could be due to caloric restriction – semaglutide medications reduce appetite –, which is associated with improved health and longevity in various species, others go further and could be related to aging mechanisms.

“We already suspected that semaglutide could have systemic effects beyond weight loss. The question was to what extent they could be related to the mechanisms of aging,” notes Salvador Macip, a researcher at the University of Leicester (United Kingdom) and the Pasqual Maragall Foundation, who heads the health sciences studies at the UOC. “This is the first study that confirms this relationship,” he adds. The authors of this study, however, call for caution: more long-term research is needed to know if these medications could have similar effects on aging and life expectancy in humans.

More healthy years

Semaglutide medications mimic the action of GLP-1, an intestinal hormone that helps regulate appetite and blood sugar levels, and are used to treat type 2 diabetes and obesity. Previous clinical trials have already demonstrated that they also reduce the risk of cardiovascular, renal, and liver disease. And they even have significant beneficial effects on neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's, although, for the moment, it is unknown how the drug causes these effects.

In this new work, published in Nature, the researchers focused on finding out what part of the benefits could be explained by caloric restriction. In an experiment with mice, they saw that those given semaglutide lived on average about 100 days longer than their counterparts. Furthermore, during the three months they received the drug, they observed an improvement in the animals' mobility and physical activity, as well as increased neural stem cell activity and the formation of new neurons in some regions of the brain.

“The effects on increasing life expectancy are small. The most interesting thing is that they improve the quality of life at the end of life, which is what is pursued: extending the years in good health as much as possible,” points out Macip, who precisely has research underway in young mice and semaglutide with preliminary results in line with those of this new work.

Even so, he reminds us, “we are very far from being able to extrapolate these results to humans.” It would be necessary to confirm these positive effects beyond weight loss and evaluate whether the benefits compensate for unwanted negative effects, such as muscle loss, which at advanced ages contributes to greater frailty. It will also be necessary to investigate whether the beneficial effects are repeated in people who are not diagnosed with obesity or age-associated diseases. All in all, this discovery opens a new path of research towards healthier aging.