GLP-1 drugs tirzepatide and semaglutide provide protection for heart health

Mass General Brigham

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A new study from Mass General Brigham provides head-to-head evidence comparing the cardioprotective effects of tirzepatide and semaglutide. The researchers found both medications reduced the risk of heart attack, stroke, and death from any cause. The study is published in Nature Medicine and results were presented simultaneously at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2025.

Previous research shows that semaglutide protects against cardiovascular events like heart attack or stroke. But it wasn’t clear if tirzepatide, also commonly prescribed for type 2 diabetes, has the same cardiovascular benefits.

Researchers used national claims databases to compare the cardiovascular outcomes of nearly one million adults taking tirzepatide, semaglutide, or other medications for type 2 diabetes.

“Randomized controlled trials are often considered the reference standard in the medical evidence generation process. However, not all questions can be answered using this time- and resource-intensive method,” said first author Nils Krüger, MD, a research fellow in the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics in the Mass General Brigham Department of Medicine. “Data generated in clinical practice and used secondarily for research allow us to address a wide range of clinically relevant questions time- and resource-effectively—when applied correctly. Moreover, we can study patients who reflect the reality of everyday clinical care, in contrast to the highly selected participants of randomized experiments.”

The study demonstrated a cardiovascular benefit for patients at risk for adverse cardiovascular events who had type 2 diabetes. Compared with sitagliptin, a diabetes drug that has shown neutral effects on cardiovascular outcomes, semaglutide reduced the risk of stroke and heart attack by 18 percent. Treatment with tirzepatide lowered the risk of stroke, heart attack, and death by 13 percent compared to dulaglutide, another GLP-1 receptor agonist that has been available for many years.

“Both drugs show strong cardioprotective effects. Our data also indicate that these benefits occur early, suggesting that their protective mechanisms go beyond weight loss alone,” said Krüger. The exact biological mechanisms underlying these protective effects remain unknown.

Because these medications have only recently become available, studies confirming their cardioprotective mechanisms—particularly those directly comparing the two dominant GLP-1 agents, tirzepatide and semaglutide—are still lacking.

“According to recently presented database analyses by the respective manufacturers, each company’s own drug appears to reduce cardiovascular risk much more effectively than the competitor’s,” said Krüger. “However, our study found only small differences between tirzepatide and semaglutide in cardiovascular protection among populations at risk of adverse events, underscoring that both agents provide protective benefit and could be integrated into clinical cardiovascular practice.”

“We hope that our study will help clinicians better understand how these new medications work in clinical practice. Our transparent and open science practices, including pre-registration of a public protocol and shared analytic code, are designed to support scientific discussion,” said last author Shirley Wang, PhD, an associate epidemiologist in the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics in the Mass General Brigham Department of Medicine.

Additional links:

• GLP-1 Drugs Reduce Risk of Death and Hospitalization in Patients with Heart Failure
• In JAMA: Semaglutide and Tirzepatide in Patients With Heart Failure With Preserved Ejection Fraction

Authorship: In addition to Krüger, Mass General Brigham authors include Sebastian Schneeweiss, Rishi J. Desai, Sushama Kattinakere Sreedhara, Anna R. Kehoe, Kenshiro Fuse, Georg Hahn, and Shirley V. Wang. Additional authors include Heribert Schunkert.

Disclosures: Schneeweiss reported personal fees from Aetion Inc, a software-enabled analytics company, and grants from Bayer, UCB, and Boehringer Ingelheim to Brigham and Women’s Hospital outside the submitted work. Schunkert reported personal fees from AstraZeneca, Bayer Vital GmbH, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, Daiichi Sankyo, MSD, Novartis, Pharmacosmos, Sanofi, Servier, Synlab, Amgen, and Amarin outside the submitted work. Wang reported personal fees from MITRE, a federally funded research and development center for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and personal fees from Cytel Inc during the conduct of the study. No other disclosures were reported.

Funding: This work was funded by the National Institutes of Health (R01-HL141505, R01-AR080194) and the German Heart Foundation (S/02/24, SRF-HF/24).

Paper cited: Krüger N et al. “Cardiovascular outcomes of semaglutide and tirzepatide for patients with type 2 diabetes in clinical practice” Nature Medicine DOI: 10.1038/s41591-025-04102-x

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About Mass General Brigham

Mass General Brigham is an integrated academic health care system, uniting great minds to solve the hardest problems in medicine for our communities and the world. Mass General Brigham connects a full continuum of care across a system of academic medical centers, community and specialty hospitals, a health insurance plan, physician networks, community health centers, home care, and long-term care services. Mass General Brigham is a nonprofit organization committed to patient care, research, teaching, and service to the community. In addition, Mass General Brigham is one of the nation’s leading biomedical research organizations with several Harvard Medical School teaching hospitals. For more information, please visit massgeneralbrigham.org.

 

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Journal

Nature Medicine

DOI

10.1038/s41591-025-04102-x 

Method of Research

Randomized controlled/clinical trial

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Cardiovascular outcomes of semaglutide and tirzepatide for patients with type 2 diabetes in clinical practice

Article Publication Date

9-Nov-2025

COI Statement

Disclosures: Schneeweiss reported personal fees from Aetion Inc, a software-enabled analytics company, and grants from Bayer, UCB, and Boehringer Ingelheim to Brigham and Women’s Hospital outside the submitted work. Schunkert reported personal fees from AstraZeneca, Bayer Vital GmbH, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, Daiichi Sankyo, MSD, Novartis, Pharmacosmos, Sanofi, Servier, Synlab, Amgen, and Amarin outside the submitted work. Wang reported personal fees from MITRE, a federally funded research and development center for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and personal fees from Cytel Inc during the conduct of the study. No other disclosures were reported.

Obesity drugs improve heart health: Study shows additional benefits of semaglutide and tirzepatide

Technical University of Munich (TUM)

• Database study compares protective effect of new GLP-1-based drugs in cardiovascular risk patients
• Evident heart benefits beyond weight loss
• Only few differences in effectiveness between semaglutide and tirzepatide for heart health

Injectable weight-loss drugs can reduce the risk of serious cardiovascular events for people with type 2 diabetes. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and Harvard Medical School have demonstrated this in using insurance claims data. They found that semaglutide and tirzepatide – marketed as Ozempic and Mounjaro – reduced the risk of serious cardiovascular events by up to 18 percent.

The study, published in Nature Medicine, analyzed a large dataset from US health insurers. "Those data are collected in routine clinical care and can be used for research. They allow us to answer a broad range of relevant questions efficiently. Importantly, we are studying patients who reflect everyday clinical practice – unlike the highly selected participants typically enrolled in randomized trials,” says Dr. Nils Krüger, first author of the study and a resident physician at the Department of Cardiovascular Diseases at the TUM University Hospital German Heart Center.

Both substances provide cardioprotective effects

The study demonstrates clear cardiovascular benefits for high-risk patients with type 2 diabetes. Compared with sitagliptin, a diabetes drug shown in previous studies to have no cardiovascular benefit, semaglutide reduced the risk of stroke and heart attack by 18 percent. Tirzepatide lowered the combined risk of stroke, heart attack, and death by 13 percent compared to dulaglutide, a GLP-1 drug that has been in clinical use for several years.

"Both substances have a cardioprotective effect. Our data show that the benefits emerge from early on, indicating that the effect goes beyond weight loss alone," says Dr. Krüger. The exact mechanisms driving this protective effect are still unclear.

As the two GLP-1 drugs have only been available for a short time, there has been a lack of studies demonstrating cardiovascular benefits in addition to weight loss – especially those directly comparing tirzepatide and semaglutide. According to the researchers, such comparative data are urgently needed to better protect at-risk patients. The interdisciplinary team led by Dr. Krüger at TUM University Hospital German Heart Center, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital aims to close this evidence gap.

Only minor differences between the two drugs

“According to the manufacturers’ claims, each one suggests its own product is more effective than the competitor’s at reducing cardiovascular risk," says Prof. Heribert Schunkert, Director of the Department of Cardiovascular Diseases at TUM University Hospital. “Our study, however, shows only small differences in heart outcomes between tirzepatide and semaglutide in the risk groups we analyzed.”

Dr. Nils Krüger adds: "We hope our findings will provide clarity to physicians about how these new medications perform in clinical practice. Our transparent study design is also intended to support open scientific discussion about whether and how modern GLP-1 drugs should become part of the standard therapeutic repertoire in cardiovascular medicine.”

 

Publication:

Krüger, N., Schneeweiss, S., Desai, R.J. Cardiovascular outcomes of semaglutide and tirzepatide for patients with type 2 diabetes in clinical practice. Nat Med (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41591-025-04102-x

Further information:

• Recently, Dr. Krüger's team was able to show that treatment with semaglutide or tirzepatide can reduce health risks for people with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction by over 40 percent. The study has been published in the journal JAMA (PMID: 40886075).
• This work was funded by the National Institutes of Health (R01-HL141505, R01-AR080194) and the German Heart Foundation (S/02/24, SRF-HF/24, RWE/11/25).
• This news item on tum.de: https://www.tum.de/en/news-and-events/all-news/press-releases/details/obesity-drugs-improve-heart-health

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Journal

Nature Medicine

DOI

10.1038/s41591-025-04102-x 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Cardiovascular outcomes of semaglutide and tirzepatide for patients with type 2 diabetes in clinical practice

Article Publication Date

9-Nov-2025

COI Statement

Dr Schneeweiss reported personal fees from Aetion Inc, a software-enabled analytics company, and grants from Bayer, UCB, and Boehringer Ingelheim to Brigham and Women’s Hospital outside the submitted work. Dr Schunkert reported personal fees from AstraZeneca, Bayer Vital GmbH, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, Daiichi Sankyo, MSD, Novartis, Pharmacosmos, Sanofi, Servier, Synlab, Amgen, and Amarin outside the submitted work. Dr Wang reported personal fees from MITRE, a federally funded research and development center for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and personal fees from Cytel Inc during the conduct of the study. No other disclosures were reported

 

Trial showing ivermectin safety in small children could spur progress against several neglected tropical diseases

American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene

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TORONTO (November 10, 2025)—Millions of very young children currently excluded from treatment with the drug ivermectin could be safely included in ongoing campaigns against challenging and often neglected tropical diseases such as intestinal worms, scabies and river blindness, according to results from a clinical trial presented today at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH).

“Our double-blind study, which was conducted in Gambia, Kenya and Brazil with 240 participants, found that ivermectin can be given to young children who weigh as little 5 kilograms or about 11 pounds—and that’s significant because these children are particularly vulnerable to the many diseases currently treatable by ivermectin,” said Kevin Kobylinski, PhD, a University of Oxford honorary visiting research fellow with the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit in Bangkok and the lead author of the study.

He said that existing manufacturer labeling restricts giving ivermectin to children under 15 kilograms. Kobylinski said there was interest in revisiting the restriction after an analysis of a large number of ivermectin studies revealed instances in which children who weighed as little as 5 kilograms received the drug without any reports of serious problems. “Outcomes from the Ivermectin Safety in Small Children trial will hopefully provide greater reassurance that ivermectin can be safely used in children weighing less than 15 kilograms,” Kobylinski said.

Ivermectin is often administered in what are known as mass drug administration (MDA) campaigns in which the population of entire villages receives the medicine. Kobylinski noted that including small children in these efforts could have a big impact. For example, he said that:

• Small children are most at risk from stunting and cognitive complications caused by infections with ivermectin-susceptible intestinal worms.
• There is evidence that ivermectin can suppress malaria transmission, but only if MDA campaigns reach about 70% of the targeted population, a percentage that is difficult to achieve when excluding children under 15 kilograms.
• Ivermectin MDA campaigns are a mainstay of efforts to eliminate onchocerciasis, also known as river blindness. It can take several years of exposure to onchocerciasis parasites before they affect vision—meaning that delaying treatment until children are older can still prevent blindness. However, infections at a very young age may trigger immune reactions that lead to a form of debilitating onchocerciasis-associated epilepsy known as nodding syndrome.
• Young children are especially vulnerable to scabies, a parasitic infestation that causes intense itching along with skin sores that, as they fester, can lead to bacterial infections and other complications. 

“Ivermectin has provided a foundation of some of the most successful interventions in global health, and evidence that it could be safely given to young children could help this work achieve an even greater impact,” said ASTMH President David Fidock, PhD, the CS Hamish Young Professor of Microbiology and Immunology and Professor of Medical Sciences at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.

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About the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene

The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, founded in 1903, is the largest international scientific organization of experts dedicated to reducing the worldwide burden of tropical infectious diseases and improving global health. It accomplishes this through generating and sharing scientific evidence, informing health policies and practices, fostering career development, recognizing excellence, and advocating for investment in tropical medicine/global health research. For more information, visit astmh.org.

 

No-needle test can tell if flu/COVID vaccines are effective

The new sensor has potential applications for autoimmune diseases, among others

University of Pittsburgh

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image: 

Detection of anti-hemagglutinin (anti-HA) antibody in PBS. (a) FET characteristic curves of a HA-SWCNT FET device upon exposure to an increasing concentration of anti-HA antibody in PBS. (b) Calibration plot for anti-HA detection in PBS (black), testing different concentrations of anti-HA on the nonfunctionalized SWCNT FET sensor chip as a control experiment (blue) and the effect of multiple incubation of the blank on the FET sensor (red). All data points plotted in the calibration plots are mean ± standard error. The number of devices (n) used for sensing is indicated in the parentheses in the legend.

view more 

Credit: Courtesy of Star Lab

A team of researchers at the University of Pittsburgh has developed a skin patch that can detect antibodies associated with COVID and flu infections. It's orders of magnitude more sensitive than existing tests, uses just a half volt of electricity, and can return results in 10 minutes.

Their paper was published online this week. It will be the cover story on the upcoming print copy of the journal Analytical Chemistry.

Contacts:

• Professor Alexander Star (chemistry)  
• Professor Emrullah Korkmaz (dermatology/engineering)
• Professor Louis Falo Jr. (dermatology)

Alexander Star, professor of chemistry in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, has also developed sensors using a similar platform to detect, among other substances, marijuana and fentanyl.

An antibody test can indicate whether a vaccine has successfully taught someone's immune system to fight a specific virus. If a test indicates soemone has mounted a strong enough response without a vaccine, they may not need to get a booster. 

The sensor uses a virus-specific antigen attached to a carbon nanotube, which is 100,000 times smaller than a human hair. The sensor can be attached painlessly on the skin using a microneedle array which samples the fluids between skin cells. When an antibody binds to its partner antigen, the electrical properties of the nanotubes change, indicating their presence.

“It doesn’t penetrate too deep and so it’s not painful,” Star said. “It’s not touching any nerves and you’re not losing any blood, but you are getting the same results.”

Beyond 'SARS-Cov-2 and H1N1, this platform could be configured to identify any antibodies, including perhaps those associated with autoimmune diseases in which flareups are often triggered by otherwise harmless viral infections.

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Journal

Analytical Chemistry

DOI

10.1021/acs.analchem.5c03817 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Monitoring Vaccine-Induced Antibody Levels Using Carbon Nanotube-Based Field-Effect Transistors

Article Publication Date

3-Nov-2025

 

English learners earn more high school credits in schools with greater teacher autonomy, collaboration, and advocacy for students

Researchers conducted a two-part study of NYC schools, including those specifically serving English learners, to analyze which factors contributed to their success

New York University

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What factors help English learners (ELs) succeed in schools? In a study of top performing New York City high schools serving immigrant ELs, researchers linked three conditions—teacher autonomy, collaboration, and collective responsibility—to higher credit attainment.

“Most research on ELs focuses on classroom instruction or broader language policies, but our study describes the professional conditions that positively impact outcomes for immigrant ELs,” says Adriana Villavicencio, lead author and assistant professor of educational leadership and policy studies at NYU Steinhardt. “We took this approach to address a dearth of evidence of the practices and approaches that have been long documented by scholars.”

Villavicencio and her co-authors conducted a two-part study published in American Educational Research Journal. First, to understand what factors shape student outcomes, they studied two New York schools within the Internationals Network for Public Schools, a network of schools whose ninth-grade students have been in the US for four years or fewer. The schools were selected for having the most positive gains in credits earned/credits attempted.

From 2018-2020, they collected data from documents, classroom and meeting observations, interviews, and focus groups. After analyzing themes related to school culture, professional practices, and curriculum, they identified three critical conditions for student success:

• Teacher influence/autonomy—freedom to make decisions regarding curricula and professional development, allowing for cultural and linguistic learning opportunities 

• Peer collaboration—deep levels of teacher collaboration across disciplines and grade levels

• Collective responsibility—a shared vision and advocacy for immigrant students

For the second part of the study, they used data from the 2012 New York City Learning Environment Survey (a large-scale survey in which education leaders, teachers and parents answer questions related to curriculum, culture, and climate) and NYC administrative data on student credits, to determine whether there were any links between these practices and student outcomes. They evaluated NYC schools broadly, including those that specifically serve ELs.

They found that all three factors were positively associated with academic achievement for all students, but that the relationships were even stronger in schools with a greater proportion of ELs, meaning that they benefited the most.

This finding was the strongest in schools with the highest levels of teacher collaboration. For schools with an average proportion of ELs, those with the lowest and highest levels of peer collaboration among teachers had a 10-point difference in their ratio of credits attempted vs. attained by students. In schools with the highest proportion of ELs, this difference was more than double (23 points). Similar results were found for teacher influence/autonomy and collective responsibility.  

“This work suggests that rather than focus primarily on language acquisition, schools should focus on supporting the work of teachers and creating the conditions for collaboration, while cultivating a school-wide commitment to the academic and socioemotional outcomes of their students,” says Villavicencio. 

“These findings help confirm previous research on the efficacy of the Internationals Network in taking a holistic approach to serving immigrant ELs,” says co-author Hua-Yu Sebastian Cherng, professor of international education at NYU Steinhardt. “This approach is also beneficial for ELs in various settings, which can help inform schools beyond the Network, and perhaps even outside New York City.”

Villavicencio and Cherng are members of the research advisory board of the Internationals Network for Public Schools.

This study was co-authored by Reva Jaffe-Walter, an associate professor at Montclair State University. 

This study was funded by the W.T. Grant Foundation.

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Journal

American Educational Research Journal

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

"The Relationship between Professional Culture and Outcomes for Immigrant EL Youth: A Mixed Method Study

Article Publication Date

10-Nov-2025