GLP-1 Medications and Heart Health: What SELECT and Other Trials Reveal (2026)
Introduction For years, people took GLP-1 medications to lose weight or manage diabetes. The heart protection was a bonus , something researchers noticed in the data, not the reason anyone wrote a prescription. That changed. In late 2023, the SELECT trial landed and fundamentally rewrote the conversation. Semaglutide , the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy , reduced the risk of major cardiovascular events in people who did not even have diabetes. The finding was big enough that the FDA expanded Wegovy’s label in March 2024 to include cardiovascular risk reduction. For the first time, a GLP-1 medication was officially a heart drug. ...