A second heart attack or stroke became about a fifth less likely
In one trial of 17,604 adults with obesity who had already had a cardiac event, repeat events over a mean 39.8 months fell from 8.0% to 6.5%.
What the study found
Heart attacks, strokes and cardiac deaths fell from 8.0% to 6.5%
Everyone here had already had a cardiac event, so this is a reduction in repeat events, not proof the drug protects a healthy heart. In 17,604 adults with obesity and no diabetes followed a mean 39.8 months, the drop was a fifth in relative terms and 1.5 percentage points in absolute.
The caveat · Weight loss and drug not separable
The trial cannot separate how much of the benefit came from the weight loss and how much from the drug's other effects, since the treated arm got both. Adverse events forced 16.6% off the drug permanently, against 8.2% on placebo, in a group with strong reason to persist. Novo Nordisk funded it and employed several of the authors.