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Semaglutide reduces cardiovascular disease mortality and COVID-19
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
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Patients taking semaglutide injections are at lower risk of dying from any cause, including cardiovascular disease and infections like COVID-19, according to an international study led by researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a member of the Mass General Brigham Medical System. The randomized controlled trial, SELECT, funded by Novo Nordisk, studied the effects of weekly semaglutide injections compared with placebo on mortality in more than 17,000 participants with heart disease and overweight or obesity from October 2018 to March 2023. The overall death rate was 19% lower in the semaglutide group compared with the placebo group. Deaths from cardiovascular disease were 15% lower, and deaths from all causes were 23% lower. The results were presented at the 2024 Congress of the European Society of Cardiology and simultaneously published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
“These results are surprising. The trial began before COVID-19, and we did not anticipate a global respiratory pandemic. We quickly realized that there was important data to collect. It is rare for a cardiometabolic drug to impact non-cardiovascular outcomes. The fact that semaglutide reduced non-cardiovascular mortality, especially from COVID-19, was unexpected. This opens up new avenues for research into how this class of drugs might benefit patients,” said Benjamin M. Sirica, MD, MPH, lead author, director of quality initiatives in the Division of Cardiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Death from infection was the most common non-cardiovascular cause of death in the study group. In the study, people taking semaglutide were just as likely to get COVID-19, but they had fewer serious side effects or COVID-19-related deaths. The researchers don’t know whether this benefit of semaglutide is due to weight loss or other effects. This result is based on a single observation, albeit in a large, multinational study, so the data needs to be confirmed. Future studies are planned to help elucidate potential mechanisms of action, and other studies of drugs in this class should provide additional data.