May 19, 2023

expert reaction to conference abstract looking at cardiovascular risk score after one year of semaglutide use in obese or overweight people

A conference abstract (not a published paper) presented at the European Congress on Obesity (ECO) looks at cardiovascular risk in patients with overweight and obesity using semaglutide.

Prof Alun Hughes, Professor of Cardiovascular Physiology and Pharmacology, UCL Institute of Cardiovascular Science, UCL, said:

“This is a preliminary report (abstract and poster) that has not been peer-reviewed.  In general, I don’t think work that is only described in brief and hasn’t undergone peer-review should be considered a reliable form of scientific evidence.

“In this example insufficient information is available to fully assess the robustness of the study.  Nevertheless, on the limited information available, there appear to be major problems in the study design that could result in substantial bias.  These problems include how patients were selected (undisclosed), the retrospective nature of the study, the lack of randomization, the lack of concealment of treatment allocation to either patient or investigator (often termed double-blinding), the lack of any control group.

“I would not want to draw any firm conclusions from this study.”

Dr Baptiste Leurent, Lecturer in Medical Statistics, UCL, said:

“This study of 93 overweight participants found that their ASCVD cardiovascular risk score has significantly decreased after 1 year.  This is not very surprising given that semaglutide is known to reduce blood pressure and cholesterol level, which are used in the calculation of these risk scores.  A risk score is a useful tool to asses someone’s risk of CVD, but a reduction in a score does not necessarily translate in a reduction of the risk.  The more important question is whether semaglutide effectively reduces CVD themselves, and this link has not been established yet.”

Abstract title: ‘Cardiovascular Risk Improvement with Semaglutide in Patients with Overweight and Obesity: A Multi-centered Study’ by Ghusn, W. et al. was presented at the European Congress on Obesity.

This work is not peer-reviewed and there is no paper.

Declared interests

Prof Alan Hughes: “No conflicts of interest.”

Dr Baptiste Leurent: “No conflict of interest.”