Wegovy may reduce knee pain in patients with osteoarthritis, obesity

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Completely satisfied Thursday! Latest research showing additional health advantages of the load loss drug Wegovy seems to crop up every week. 

This time around, Novo Nordisk‘s blockbuster treatment helped reduce knee pain in patients with a style of arthritis and obesity, in keeping with research published Wednesday within the Latest England Journal of Medicine.

The study was funded by Novo Nordisk, which is conducting several studies on the opposite potential treatment uses of semaglutide, the lively ingredient in Wegovy.

The outcomes of the 68-week trial could possibly be a giant deal for the Danish drugmaker: It could pave the way in which for regulatory approval of semaglutide for osteoarthritis, a degenerative joint disease that causes the cartilage and bone in your joints to interrupt down over time. 

It might be one more expansion of the accepted uses for the blockbuster drug. 

It’s essentially the most common style of arthritis and affects around 33 million people within the U.S., in keeping with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The condition shouldn’t be a daily a part of aging, however it is common amongst adults 45 and above. 

So, how is the condition related to obesity? The chance of developing the condition is 4 times higher in individuals with obesity, the trial’s lead study creator Dr. Henning Bliddal, director and research professor at The Parker Institute in Denmark, said in a statement. 

Shedding weight may help reduce knee osteoarthritis symptoms, but adherence to those lifestyle changes will be difficult, Bliddal said. There also aren’t very many other effective treatments for the condition. 

“There may be a major need for non-surgical and sustainable treatment options for those living with obesity-related osteoarthritis,” Bliddal added.

Let’s dive into more details on the trial.

It included roughly 400 patients with knee osteoarthritis. Participants had a median age of 56, and roughly 80% of the cohort were women, who experience osteoarthritis at higher rates than men do. 

People either took a weekly injection of semaglutide or a placebo for 68 weeks. Everyone also received guidance on how you can maintain reduced-calorie diets and incorporate exercise into their every day lives. 

Patients with osteoarthritis who dieted, exercised and took semaglutide lost more weight and reported a greater reduction in knee pain than those that lost weight with eating regimen and exercise alone. By the top of the trial, individuals who took semaglutide lost a median of nearly 14% of their body weight, or around 33 kilos, in comparison with just 3% amongst those that got a placebo. 

Changes in body weight were also accompanied by reductions in pain, which was measured using a particular index that scores it on a scale 0 to 100. On average, patients within the trial began with a median pain rating of 70.9. 

Those that took semaglutide reported a major reduction in pain – a median drop of about 42 points — while those within the placebo group had a median drop of 27.5 points.

However it’s unclear if semaglutide could have that profit for all patients, equivalent to those that are mildly obese or chubby. Most people enrolled within the trial had a high BMI, so researchers could have to copy the findings in other populations. 

Be at liberty to send any suggestions, suggestions, story ideas and data to Annika at annikakim.constantino@nbcuni.com.

Be at liberty to send any suggestions, suggestions, story ideas and data to Bertha at bertha.coombs@nbcuni.com.

Not less than 100 million Americans were affected by the Change Healthcare cyberattack, in keeping with an updated figure published to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights’ breach portal. The previous record was set by Anthem in 2015 when hackers compromised data from 78.8 million patients. 

The figure is roughly according to the estimate that UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty shared with lawmakers in May, when he guessed that around one-third of Americans had been impacted. The corporate began mailing written notices to affected individuals in late July. 

Change Healthcare offers payment and revenue cycle management tools for medical providers and payers, in addition to other solutions equivalent to electronic prescription software. In February, UnitedHealth disclosed that a cyber threat actor breached a part of the corporate’s information technology network. 

UnitedHealth disconnected the affected systems when the threat was detected, and the disruption caused a ripple of fallout across the U.S. health-care sector. Many doctors were temporarily left with no solution to fill prescriptions or receives a commission for his or her services, and a few providers took hundreds of dollars out of savings to maintain their doors open. 

Within the months following the breach, UnitedHealth paid a $22 million ransom to the hackers, worked to bring systems back online and confirmed that files containing personal information were compromised within the attack. 

The precise style of data that was exposed within the breach varies from individual to individual, in keeping with UnitedHealth’s website. Meaning a mixture of patients’ contact information, medical health insurance information, medical records, billing and payment information might have been accessed. 

UnitedHealth is offering two years of free identity theft protections credit monitoring for people who think they were impacted. Patients can contact a dedicated call center to inquire about these offerings or speak with a clinician who can provide emotional support services, the corporate said.

Patients must also look ahead to suspicious activity across their tax returns and explanation of advantages, bank and bank card statements, in keeping with UnitedHealth’s website.  

Be at liberty to send any suggestions, suggestions, story ideas and data to Ashley at ashley.capoot@nbcuni.com.