The diabetes and weight loss drug semaglutide significantly reduced symptoms and improved quality of life in people with obesity and the most common form of heart failure in a clinical trial, potentially expanding the already wildly popular drug’s use beyond diabetes and weight loss and offering a new treatment option where few are available.

Dr. Mikhail Kosiborod, cardiologist and vice president for research at Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute, was the lead author of the study and presented the findings of STEP-HFpEF trial during the opening late breaking clinical trial session at the European Society of Cardiology Congress (ESC Congress)—the world’s largest cardiology conference— in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

The study of 529 patients found that a 2.4-milligram weekly dose of semaglutide led to an improvement of 17 points on a 100-point scale that’s used to assess symptoms of a condition known as heart failure with preserved ejection fraction. By comparison, participants who got a placebo had a 9-point improvement. The study was published Friday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

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