Patients with Parkinson’s disease get zero benefit from taking a skinny jab despite promising early results, a trial has found.
Not only did they not lose significant amounts of weight over a two-year period, patients saw no improvement of symptoms like mobility problems and tremors, as was predicted based on prior research.
Experts had hoped a medication called exenatide, a weight loss jab in the same class of drugs as Ozempic and Wegovy, could help combat the degenerative nerve condition.
But University College of London researchers found no positive impact on symptoms or disease-related brain damage.
Patients also only experienced minor weight-loss during the trial despite being on a weight-loss jab, only losing 4lbs (1.8kg) on average. This was only 1lbs (500g) more than the placebo group.
Professor Thomas Foltynie, an expert in neurology and author of the study detailing the results, said the findings would be devastating to patients hoping for a breakthrough.
‘The results of this trial have been eagerly anticipated and the negative results will be a major disappointment to patients affected by Parkinson’s disease and the Parkinson’s disease research community,’ he said.
Previous trials, conducted in 2008 and 2017, suggested exenatide significantly delayed the progression, and in some cases even improved, Parkinson’s symptoms like tremors and mobility problems.
Patients with Parkinson’s get zero benefit from taking a skinny jab despite promising early results, a trial has found. Stock image
Scientists suspected exenatide could help combat the condition based on early studies that suggested it triggered a range of benefits.
They found it boosted neurons in the brain that govern movement, combated damaging inflammation and helped brain cells repair themselves.
The effect lasted even a year after patients stopped taking the drug in some of the earlier trials.
But the results of the newer, larger study, which involved almost 200 patients in Britain, failed to deliver.
Patients in the trial had at least a healthy BMI, but were not all overweight.
They were either given weekly exenatide injections or a placebo jab.
At the end of the 96-week study those taking exenatide, sold under the brand Bydureon in the UK, saw no benefits compared to the placebo group.
Experts were unsure why this was the case, and Professor Foltynie said further work was needed to unpick if exenatide might still work for a sub-set of Parkinson’s patients.
Symptoms can include uncontrollable tremors, slow movements and muscle stiffness, but experts say they often only appear when about 80 per cent of the nerve cells have been lost
‘It is not yet clear whether there may be a subgroup of people with Parkinson’s disease who may get benefit from the use of exenatide,’ he said.
‘We will continue to scrutinise the data to see whether abnormal blood test results such as having “pre-diabetes” might predict a better response to exenatide, and whether there were more of these people in the earlier, smaller trials in which we found positive overall effects.’
The researchers added there were other ongoing trials examining if drugs like semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy, may be able to help with Parkinson’s.
However, they noted that unwanted weight-loss is a potential side-effect for patients of a healthy weight.
About 150,000 people in Britain, and 10million worldwide, have Parkinson’s and it is estimated one in 37 of us will be diagnosed with it during our lifetime.
Risks of developing the condition increases with age — most patients are diagnosed over 50.
Parkinson’s is a poorly understood condition which sees nerve cells in the brain that produce the vital hormone dopamine die off.
This leads to a range of symptoms like mobility issues and tremors.
Experts are still working to uncover what triggers this process, but current thinking is that it’s due to a combination of genetic changes and environmental factors.
It has no cure, and the disease is progressive meaning it inevitably get worse over time.
However, treatments are available to manage symptoms and maintain quality of life for as long as possible.
The failure of exenatide to provide a potential treatment for Parkinson’s runs counter to a broader trend of studies finding weight-loss jabs can treat a range of other conditions besides diabetes and obesity.
Last year it was revealed semaglutide helped slash the chances of heart attack and stroke independent of its weight-loss affect.
Another study that same year found weight loss jabs slashed the chances of dying from kidney disease by almost a quarter.
