Drugs designed to mimic GLP-1 and promote weight loss may also help limit further heart damage after a heart attack. A new study led by researchers at the University of Bristol and University of London (UCL) has found that these drugs may reduce the risk of serious complications that occur in up to half of heart attack patients.
The survey results are nature communicationssuggest that GLP-1 reduction drugs may provide a new strategy to improve recovery after heart attack.
Previous studies have already shown that GLP-1 weight loss drugs may reduce the chance of serious heart disease. Remarkably, these benefits appear regardless of a person’s pre-existing health conditions or how much weight they lost while taking the drug.
Scientists investigate how GLP-1 drugs protect the heart
To better understand why these drugs benefit the heart, researchers investigated the biological processes involved. Their early work showed that small contractile cells called pericytes squeeze coronary capillaries during the early stages of ischemia, which occurs when the heart muscle is starved of oxygen-rich blood.
In the new study, the researchers investigated whether GLP-1 drugs could counteract this process and reopen small blood vessels that become blocked.
Dr Svetlana Mashitskaya, Senior Lecturer in Cardiovascular Regenerative Medicine, Translational Health Sciences (THS), Bristol Medical School, and lead author of the study, said: “In almost half of heart attack patients, small blood vessels within the heart muscle remain narrowed even after main artery blood flow is removed during emergency treatment. This results in a complication known as ‘non-reflux’, where blood is unable to reach certain parts of the heart tissue.
“Our previous research has shown that narrowing of this blood vessel contributes significantly to ‘nonreflux,’ a complication that increases the risk of death or hospitalization for heart failure within a year of a heart attack. But our latest findings are surprising in that we found that GLP-1 drugs may be able to prevent this problem.”
GLP-1 drugs improve blood flow in the heart
Experiments in animal models have shown that GLP-1 drugs improve blood flow in the heart after a heart attack. The drug activates potassium channels, causing pericytes to relax and previously constricted blood vessels to dilate. As a result, blood reaches the heart tissue more effectively and there is less chance of further damage.
Professor David Attwell, Jodrell Professor of Physiology at UCL and co-lead of the study, added: “With a growing number of similar GLP-1 drugs 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 ‘no-reflow’ risk in heart attack patients, providing a potentially life-saving solution.”
Dr Svetlana Mashitskaya receives funding from the British Heart Foundation.
