The idea was so impressive. Medicines in the GLP-1 class, which includes Wegovy and Ozempic, have proven to be miraculous in the treatment of weight loss and other diseases. And some researchers hope that medicines could also help with some of the most difficult diseases for the treatment of – those of the brain, such as Parkinson.
But now, at least for Parkinson, this hope seems to be diminishing. A rigorous study by Parkinson’s patients accidentally assigned an Exenatide, a relative of OZEMPIC, has shown absolutely no benefit or deceleration of the course of degenerative disease after 96 weeks.
And there was no effect on the patient’s symptoms, no effect on brain scans, no subgroup that showed any benefit. No matter how the researchers put the data the results were the same.
The study, published Tuesday in Lancet, is bad news for half million Americans diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Symptoms include horror, stiffness and difficulty with balance. Patients may also develop dementia. Treatments, including drugs and deep brain stimulation, can help with symptoms. But no cure has been shown to slow down the progress of the disease.
“It is extremely disappointing,” said Dr. Thomas Foltynie of the University College of London, who led the trial. “We waited to go through and we will have a positive result.”
Parkinson experts shared his emotion.
“This is a disappointing moment,” said Dr. Michael S. Okun, an expert in Parkinson’s disease at the University of Florida and the National Medical Adviser to the Parkinson’s Foundation. “This is a very good study and came on an empty hand.”
The finding may have an impact on researchers asking if the newer GLP-1 medicines could help slow down Alzheimer’s course or could prevent the disease.
The new study included 194 people with Parkinson disease who were treated in six research hospitals in the United Kingdom, patients were randomly commissioned to inject once a week for 96 weeks with Exenatide, a Type 2 diabetes treatment made by Astrazeneca and sold By name byetta, or with placebo. The trial was funded by the British National Institute of Health and Care with support for substitutes by the Parkinson Charity Therapeutic Therapy and the Van Andel Institute.
The drug is in the same category as Ozempic and Wegovy and, as well as, reduces blood sugar levels. They are all the so-called GLP-1 receptor agonists, usually called GLP-1s. Exenatide is not as powerful in causing weight loss as younger drugs, but experts say there is no reason to believe that the latest drugs would perform differently in cerebral studies.
The results, the researchers mentioned, are particularly disappointing because there were suggestions that GLP-1 medicines could help Parkinson patients.
GLP-1 medicines protect neurons from damage to laboratory studies and in a study of rats that have received a brain injury such as the one in Parkinson’s disease.
It has begun to appear that the results may also apply to patients.
“People began digging into claims databases,” Dr. Okun said, explaining that the researchers had examined large databases showing drugs that people took and their diagnoses. Researchers asked if patients who had received GLP-1s might be less likely to take Parkinson or, if they had, would have a disease that went slower.
The results were very promising.
They looked at epidemiological studies. They found that people with GLP-1 diabetes were less likely to have Parkinson.
Then, two small studies indicate that the exenatide can slow down the evolution of certain symptoms of Parkinson for one year.
Continuing the hints of progress, a larger but still preliminary study, published last year in the Journal of Medicine of New England, found that a GLP-1 no longer on the market-Lixisenatide-seemed to be slightly slow progress on the disease against one year.
Dr. Okun, then, said the result was “noisy at the edges of the modification of the disease”.
“What we had last year was a one -year trial and a small signal,” said Dr. David Standaert, a Parkinson’s researcher at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. “What would happen if you went more? Well, this is bigger and there is not much here. ”
The problem with the GLP-1 study in Parkinson’s disease, Dr. Standaert said, is that what the exenatide is supposed to be clear.
“I wouldn’t do another study like this, unless you find out what the goal is,” said Dr. Standaert. “What is the biochemistry you are trying to change in the brain? How do these medicines work anyway?”
