alt Hacker Newstdlr: This is a Novo Nordisk-funded study focusing on predictive biomarkers rather than real-world dementia cases. Novo Nordisk's actual dedicated clinical trials for Alzheimer's completely failed to show that semaglutide stops cognitive decline.
"A predictive biomarker is like a "check engine" light on your dashboard. It warns you that there is a risk of a future problem. In this study, the researchers only checked if the drug turned off the "check engine" light (by measuring blood proteins), rather than testing if the car was actually driving properly (by testing the patients' actual memory and brain function)."
Always do FIRST analysis on studies. Or have AI do it for you. I used Gemini to dig into this:
"Novo Nordisk funded this study, and several of the researchers are employees or minor shareholders. While corporate funding doesn't automatically mean the data is fabricated, it does mean the company is highly motivated to find and publish data that makes their blockbuster drug (semaglutide, marketed as Wegovy, Ozempic, and Rybelsus) look like a preventative treatment for a wider range of conditions, expanding its market and driving up profits."
"Funding: The study was funded by Novo Nordisk A/S.
Investigation: Researchers conducted a post hoc analysis using data from the randomized, placebo-controlled SELECT trial. They applied the Dementia SomaSignal Test (dSST)—a 25-protein risk score—to non-fasted serum samples collected at baseline and at week 104 to estimate 5-year and 20-year all-cause dementia risk in patients receiving semaglutide (2.4 mg) versus a placebo.
Results: Semaglutide significantly attenuated the progression of the dementia risk signature. Compared to the placebo group, the 5-year predicted risk increased 2.5-fold less (a 26.0% lower predicted event rate) and the 20-year risk increased 1.67-fold less (an 8.8% lower rate). Semaglutide also lowered the odds of patients moving into a higher dementia risk category by 36%.
Subjects: The analysis included 2,970 older adults aged 65 and older (mean age of ~69.7 years) who had overweight or obesity and cardiovascular disease, but no history of diabetes. The cohort consisted of 814 women (27.4%) and 2,156 men (72.6%).
Time: The study evaluated data over a 104-week (2-year) follow-up period. The analysis was published on August 8, 2026."
And then map the weakness to each respective letter if you want to dig deeper.
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Not only that but high intakes of added sugars and fast-acting, high-glycemic carbohydrates are linked to an increased risk of cognitive decline and dementia. Excess simple sugars, particularly fructose and sucrose, promote insulin resistance, chronic inflammation, and vascular damage that impair brain function and accelerate neurodegeneration. So with other words, you diet is a major contributing factor here. The medical establishment and big pharma simple ignores the fact that the biggest health risk for a human being is the "modern" high sugar diet that Kellogs introduced in the US and spread to the western world (even to Asia at some extent).
Regarding “actual tests”: My team and I built a battery of longitudinal cognitive assessments useful for testing memory and brain function. (http://getNeuroUX.com)
Didn't even bother looking into it because there's obviously not enough data yet to say anything substantial about GLP-1s and Alzheimers. But your comment should probably be the top.
Much appreciated post, but can you keep the AI slop separate from the rest of it?
Which sort of affirms the mantra, "If you can't prove causation, try to prove correlation." This because you can market correlation to unsophisticated readers and imply causation.
So translated to human, does this basically mean then that semaglutide distorts dementia-predictions by altering the related biomarkers, rather than actually help with dementia?
Doesn’t socialized medicine mean that big brother already knows the answer to these questions? Why isn’t NHS or whomever more useful on these issues?
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> This is a Novo Nordisk-funded study focusing on predictive biomarkers rather than real-world dementia cases
You act like all this is hidden, but the title of the article and the list of authors makes this self-evident.
> Novo Nordisk's actual dedicated clinical trials for Alzheimer's completely failed to show that semaglutide stops cognitive decline
Sure, but the EVOKE studies were focused on something that could be sold as a product covered by insurance: semaglutide to those who had already developed Alzheimer’s. It is widely agreed the trial failed because it was a population already diagnosed with dementia. There’s lots of studies not funded by Novo that show semiglutatide has reduced the incidence of dementia in the diabetes population. Novo knows that running a general study on whether semaglutide reduces dementia in a non-diagnosed population is useless to their bottom line because insurance will never pay for everyone to take the drug.