{"id":836589,"date":"2026-03-19T16:54:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T16:54:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/836589\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T16:54:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T16:54:15","slug":"ozempic-like-drugs-may-help-prevent-damage-after-a-heart-attack-sciencealert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/836589\/","title":{"rendered":"Ozempic-Like Drugs May Help Prevent Damage After a Heart Attack : ScienceAlert"},"content":{"rendered":"

GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy are taken for weight loss<\/a> and diabetes<\/a> management, but another potential health boost has now emerged: a reduced risk of complications in people recovering from a heart attack<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The medications may help prevent further tissue damage<\/a> after a heart attack (myocardial infarction), according to a new study that examined the effect of a GLP-1 compound on blood flow in mouse hearts. Their experiments revealed that the compound relaxes cells that often continue constricting tiny blood vessels called capillaries after a heart attack.<\/p>\n

The researchers behind the study, from the University of Bristol and University College London (UCL) in the UK, suggest that GLP-1 drugs, including those already on the market, could be used to improve heart attack recovery rates<\/a> \u2013 though much further study will be required to get there.<\/p>\n

When someone has a heart attack, blood flow to the heart is blocked (this is called coronary ischemia<\/a>). Typically, the most urgent fix is to open the main artery supplying the heart with blood \u2013 but this doesn’t always restore blood flow. It’s this problem that GLP-1 might be able to overcome.<\/p>\n

“Our results provide a potential therapeutic approach for dealing with the fact that, following coronary ischemia, lack of reflow in the microcirculation after an upstream artery is unblocked has a negative impact on clinical outcome,” writes<\/a> the team in their published paper.<\/p>\n

GLP-1 drugs mimic the natural glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) hormone, which can slow digestion, reduce hunger, and help keep blood sugar levels in check. They’ve also been linked to improved heart health in people with pre-existing conditions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Those previous links led the researchers behind the new study to hypothesize that GLP-1 medication may help with heart attack recovery.<\/p>\n

To find out, they replicated a heart attack in surgically removed mouse hearts, then analyzed what happened to the capillaries when those hearts were injected with the GLP-1 compound, compared with when they weren’t.<\/p>\n

\"MouseThe researchers looked at the effects of GLP-1 on cells called pericytes, which encase capillaries. (Mastitskaya et al., Nat. Comm., 2026)<\/p>\n

The tests showed that GLP-1 can act on blood vessel wrapper cells called pericytes<\/a>, relaxing them by activating ion channels in the cell membrane. In turn, this restores the capillaries to their pre-heart-attack state, allowing blood to flow again.<\/p>\n

“Our previous research<\/a> has shown that this narrowing of blood vessels contributes significantly to ‘no-reflow’, a complication that increases the risk of death or hospital admission for heart failure within a year of a heart attack,” says<\/a> immunologist Svetlana Mastitskaya, from the University of Bristol.<\/p>\n

“But our latest findings are surprising in that we have found GLP-1 drugs may prevent this problem.”<\/p>\n

The discovery also helps explain an experimental procedure called remote ischaemic conditioning<\/a> (RPc), which has been shown to help in heart attack recovery in animal studies<\/a>. RPc involves restricting blood flow to one of the limbs to trigger a protective response in the brain, opening the capillaries to allow blood to flow properly again.<\/p>\n

\"Subscribe<\/a><\/p>\n

While a 2016 study by Mastitskaya and collaborators had previously linked RPc to GLP-1 release, we now know much more about that process. There’s a brain-to-gut-to-heart connection happening here (the gut is where the GLP-1 hormone is primarily released from).<\/p>\n

Researchers are still in the very early stages with this: These experiments were conducted in surgically removed mouse hearts, and it remains to be seen whether branded drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy could have the same capillary-relaxing effect in people.<\/p>\n

Related: Ozempic-Like Drugs Linked With Lower Risk of Substance Addiction<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Still, it’s a promising discovery for improving recovery rates after a heart attack, and something that can be explored in future research. Although the odds of surviving a heart attack are now very good<\/a>, long-term recovery rates are less encouraging<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“With an increasing number of similar GLP-1 drugs now being used in clinical practice, for conditions ranging from type 2 diabetes and obesity to kidney disease, our findings highlight the potential for these existing drugs to be repurposed to treat the risk of ‘no-reflow’ in heart attack patients, offering a potentially life-saving solution,” says<\/a> UCL physiologist David Attwell, who co-led the study.<\/p>\n

The research has been published in Nature Communications<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy are taken for weight loss and diabetes management, but another potential…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":836590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4315],"tags":[105,4326,120,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-836589","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-medication","10":"tag-msft-content","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116256890441110703","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=836589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/836590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=836589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=836589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=836589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}