“If confirmed, these results suggest that using GLP-1 drugs in patients with type 2 diabetes could have added advantages such as reducing blood clot risk,” says senior study author Rushad Patell, MD, a hematologist and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.
“This may be particularly relevant in a patient that has other risk factors such as a family history of blood clots or a prior history of clots, where the overall risk of a blood clot is even higher,” Dr. Patell says.
These preliminary study findings were presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology.
New Diabetes and Obesity Drugs Reduced Blood Clot Risk by Nearly 20 Percent
The study focused on what’s known as venous thromboembolism (VTE), serious blood clots in the veins that are more common in people with obesity and type 2 diabetes — two conditions treated by GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic, Mounjaro, Wegovy, and Zepbound.
Researchers examined medical records for 337,000 people with type 2 diabetes, many of whom had obesity and poorly controlled blood sugar. Half of them were prescribed GLP-1s and the other half took older diabetes drugs like Januvia, which are in a family of medicines known as DPP-4 inhibitors that are prescribed to lower blood sugar.
Overall, people who took GLP-1 drugs had an 18 percent lower risk of developing VTE. The risk reduction was similar for people with and without obesity.
In absolute terms, the annual difference in VTE risk didn’t appear as dramatic. Researchers calculated that 11 in 1,000 patients on GLP-1s would develop these serious clots, compared to 12.9 in 1,000 patients on DPP-4s.
GLP-1s Should Not Be Taken for Blood Clot Risk Alone
One drawback of the study is that it only compared GLP-1s with one type of diabetes medicine, and didn’t look at other commonly prescribed drugs that work differently for diabetes, such as sulfonylureas, says Jody Dushay, MD, an endocrinologist and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, who wasn’t involved in the new study.
“The absolute reduction in events is small,” Dr. Dushay says. “I would not start people on GLP-1s for the specific reason of reducing risk of VTE. I definitely want to see additional studies comparing GLP-1s to other agents.”
Other experts agree it’s premature to consider GLP-1s over other diabetes drugs based on the potential to reduce the risk of clots identified in the new study.
“I do not suggest that patients start taking GLP-1s because of their risk for a venous thromboembolism,” says Charles Abrams, MD, a professor and hematologist at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia, who wasn’t involved in the new study. “There is a very modest benefit.”
Osama Hamdy, MD, PhD, an endocrinologist and director of the obesity clinical program at the Joslin Diabetes Center and associate professor at Harvard Medical School, agrees more evidence is needed before using GLP-1s specifically for clot prevention, and stresses that there are other proven approaches patients can take to reduce their risk.
“Diabetes can lead to poor circulation and damage to blood vessels, which increases the likelihood of blood clots forming,” says Dr. Hamdy, who wasn’t involved in the new study. People with diabetes can lower their odds of developing clots by addressing other factors that increase risk, such as obesity, high blood pressure, and a sedentary lifestyle, Hamdy notes.
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