GLP1s and Dementia: What the Latest Science Shows | Quick + Dirty
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What groundbreaking data shows a reduction in dementia risk?
You are tuned into The Dr. Tina Show with Dr. Tina Moore. For more, visit drtina.com. On this episode of The Dr. Tina Show, I'm going to be sharing this study with you that showed a jaw-dropping 45% reduction in dementia risk. Not from some new Alzheimer's drug, not from some fancy intervention, but from good old GLP-1s. And I'm so excited to share the data with you. So let's jump in.
What are the neurocognitive benefits of GLP-1 medications?
All right, so this was a very interesting study. They basically, it was done by two undergrad students, so that right there is very cool. They looked at 26 randomized control clinical trials, over 164,000 participants. And this study included patients with type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular risk factors and or actually. And they looked at different types of blood sugar-lowering drugs like metformin, GLP-1s, SGLT-2s, SGLT-2 inhibitors, I'm sorry. And they compared them all and then they sorted out what cardiovascular benefits were happening and dementia risk. So the mean age participant was about 65 years old, 64.4 years, I guess 64 years old. 35% were women and the average duration follow-up was 31.4 months.
I will say that's a limitation of the study. They didn't follow up with them very long. And as we know, dementia takes decades to... So there's that. But overall, what they found, the key findings were that the cardioprotective glucose lowering therapies did not significantly reduce the risk of dementia or cognitive impairment overall. This is important and I want to reiterate what this means. Whenever I talk about GLP-1s and their benefits, everybody wants to argue, well, wouldn't reducing your blood sugar, wouldn't optimizing your metabolic health, wouldn't weight loss already improve outcomes with X, Y, or Z? And yes, I would say yes. This showed that with other medications designed specifically to be cardioprotective and lower glucose, they did not see the dementia risk reduction.
How do GLP-1 receptor agonists compare to other treatments?
So it's not as obvious as one would think it is. It's not just, oh, well, they lost weight, so of course their brain health improved. Or they lowered their blood sugar, so of course their brain health improved. Those things should indeed improve diabetes. brain health, but not like the GLP-1 did. GLP-1 receptor agonists specifically were associated with a 45% relative reduction in dementia risk compared to controls. SGLT2 inhibitors showed no significant effect on dementia risk. Metformin had no eligible trials and the other drug, I cannot pronounce, pioglitazone showed no significant benefit. Secondary findings, no statistically significant reduction in vascular dementia or Alzheimer's disease separately for any drug class. GLP-1 receptor agonist showed signals toward benefit across several cognitive measures, but no cognitive score improvements were consistently demonstrated across all included trials and no significant impact was seen on Lewy body dementia or frontotemporal dementia.
I get asked about that a lot, actually, about specific types of dementia. They had too few cases to really determine, so I'm not sure. The reason I got interested in GLP-1s, and for those who don't know what GLP-1 receptor agonists are, these are the drugs like Wegovy, Ozempic, Manjaro, Zepbound. These are all GLP-1 receptor agonists.
What are the limitations of the current dementia studies?
And the reason I got interested in them originally was because of their neuroprotective benefits. That was what got me looking at them. And when I started finding the data in both rodents and humans, I was like, what? This is not what we're being told. And beyond that, yes, they have a very incredible... I believe if you break down the mechanisms, I just did a podcast about TERS appetite and metabolic health overall. They look to be protective of metabolic health. They definitely induce weight loss. I don't think it's just because they get you to eat less. I think it's because they actually improve your insulin signaling, your insulin reception. There's a lot of different mechanisms going on here.
They impact the immune system directly and indirectly. They lower inflammation in the brain and throughout the body. All of these things will help with overall cardioprotective benefits, weight loss, neurologic benefits. I mean, they're pretty profound.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What groundbreaking data shows a reduction in dementia risk?
0:00–0:29
2
What are the neurocognitive benefits of GLP-1 medications?
0:29–2:21
3
How do GLP-1 receptor agonists compare to other treatments?
2:21–3:48
4
What mechanisms do GLP-1s use to protect brain health?
3:48
5
What are the limitations of the current dementia studies?
1:27–5:10
6
What alternative options are there for cognitive health?
5:10–19:33
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The Dr. Tyna Show
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