Ozempic and other GLP-1 weight loss drugs may slow biological aging, according to a new study.
The research, published earlier this week by the University of California at San Diego, revealed that semaglutide GLP-1s may be reprogramming cells to boost immune health and reducing inflammation, slowing the body’s decline at a cellular level.
Other health benefits have already been identified from GLP-1s, which the San Diego team said could be linked to the slow-down in biological aging. But the team noted that much still needs to be learned about the process.
“We are not saying that semaglutide reverses aging or makes people younger,” Michael Corley, an associate professor of medicine at the school, said in a statement. “What we are seeing is a signal that it may slow some of the biological processes associated with aging.”
Around 30 million Americans are taking GLP-1s to aid weight loss along with other conditions including diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Experts have long known that biological aging can be slowed down with a good diet, regular exercise and avoiding alcohol and drugs.
Past research, from the University of Colorado at Boulder Anschutz, shows that GLP-1s may be reprogramming cells to boost the body’s immune response.
That could also be what’s happening in this case, Corley, from UC-San Diego, suggested. “Emerging data also suggest that GLP-1 drugs may reprogram certain cells in different organs,” he said.
Inflammation is the body’s natural response to injuries and invading bacteria but it can damage the body’s organs, tissue and accelerate cell aging when it persists.
GLP-1 drugs help people shed excess fat that can cause inflammation, stopping cell aging, UC-San Diego said.
Inflammation also raises an individual’s risk of developing chronic diseases, like HIV. Previous research shows women who have genital inflammation are at an increased risk of sexual HIV infection.
The new 32-week study was conducted in more than 100 adults living with HIV who had excess fat due to a condition called lipohypertrophy, which is common in people who receive injections and develops due to inflammation, and some who also had metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease, another condition that HIV patients regularly contract.
24 weeks into the study, the UC-San Diego team found GLP-1s slowed the rate of biological aging for 42 percent of participants with HIV and steatotic liver disease.
“Many of the biological processes we study in HIV are also central to aging in the general population,” Corley said. “Because these processes can emerge earlier or be more pronounced in people with HIV, this community can help us identify interventions that may improve healthspan more broadly.”
The U.C. San Diego team hopes to conduct larger trials to confirm these findings and determine for how long the drugs may be able to slow biological aging in the body. That could inform dosing and treatment for people with HIV and the broader population in the future.
The researchers also plan to see if slowing aging may be enhanced with other proven methods like a healthy diet, exercise and sleep.
“With newer GLP-1–based therapies now emerging, the field has an opportunity to test whether different drugs in this class have distinct effects on aging biology and to identify which patients may benefit most,” said Corley.
