Ozempic and Wegovy Tied to Nearly 40% Fewer Asthma Attacks, UK Records Study Finds

BARCELONA, Spain — People with asthma who started semaglutide, the drug sold as Ozempic and Wegovy, had nearly 40% fewer attacks than similar patients on older diabetes pills, researchers told a European lung meeting this week.

The finding comes from real-world U.K. electronic health records, not a randomized trial. Lead investigator Chloe Bloom, a clinical associate professor in respiratory epidemiology at Imperial College London's National Heart and Lung Institute, said the signal was strongest for semaglutide and for asthma rather than chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. "The effect was strongest with semaglutide especially in people with asthma, where use of semaglutide appears to be associated with nearly a 40% reduction in asthma attacks. Semaglutide also led to a 20% reduction in COPD flare-ups," she said in a European Respiratory Society statement.

Bloom's team ran four parallel analyses, each with about 20,000 to 22,000 adults who newly started a GLP-1 receptor agonist or a sulfonylurea. The patients already had asthma or COPD and were taking the shots or pills for diabetes or weight. Attacks were counted as a short course of oral steroids, an emergency visit, a hospital stay or death. Across GLP-1 drugs as a class, exacerbations were about 14% lower than with sulfonylureas, according to a MedPage Today account of the Barcelona presentation. By drug, semaglutide was tied to about a 30% drop in mixed asthma-or-COPD events, with a 38% drop when the analysis was limited to asthma and a 21% drop in COPD.

"GLP-1 receptor agonists are widely used to treat type 2 diabetes and obesity," Bloom said. "Previous research suggests that they may have anti-inflammatory effects and may improve lung-related outcomes. However, asthma and COPD outcomes have not been included as outcomes in GLP-1 drug trials. We wanted to use real-world health records to investigate whether people with asthma or COPD who started GLP-1 receptor agonists had fewer acute respiratory attacks."

She was explicit about what the data do not authorize. "The findings from this study are encouraging, but they should not change treatment decisions on their own. People with asthma or COPD should not start GLP-1 receptor agonists specifically for their lung condition outside current prescribing guidance. While the findings suggest that some people taking GLP-1 receptor agonists may experience fewer respiratory attacks, this needs confirmation in clinical trials."

Alexander Mathioudakis, chair of the ERS group on airway pharmacology and a senior lecturer at the University of Manchester, who was not involved in the work, called it "one of the largest real-world studies to investigate GLP-1 receptor agonists and airways disease, and one of the first to examine whether effects differ between individual GLP-1 receptor agonists." Marie Spreckley of the University of Cambridge, commenting via the Science Media Centre, said it is "too early to state that semaglutide reduces or prevents asthma attacks" and that people "should not seek semaglutide specifically for asthma or change their existing asthma treatment because of these findings."

Obesity and asthma travel together. Incidence of asthma rises about 50% in people with overweight or obesity, and risk climbs with weight. GLP-1 drugs lower blood sugar, slow emptying of the stomach and cut appetite. They also lower high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, a marker of inflammation. A post-hoc look at Novo Nordisk's SELECT trial found fewer asthma-related adverse events on semaglutide than placebo (hazard ratio 0.58). That analysis was not designed as an asthma trial either.

Why semaglutide would outpace other GLP-1s in Bloom's records is not settled. Dose, duration and who gets which brand in U.K. practice could all matter. HealthDay's write-up of the same talk said no significant association was found for the other GLP-1s in some cuts of the data. MedPage Today reported smaller reductions for exenatide and dulaglutide. Observational studies cannot fully separate weight loss from a direct airway effect. People who stay on expensive injections may also be more engaged with clinics.

The practical line Bloom drew is the one regulators already use. Adults who already qualify for semaglutide because of type 2 diabetes or obesity, and who also have asthma, may be getting a lung side benefit. Adults who do not qualify should not start the drug as an asthma medicine. Inhaled steroids, bronchodilators and biologics remain the labeled tools for attacks.

Ozempic is approved for type 2 diabetes. Wegovy is approved for chronic weight management. Neither label lists asthma as an indication. Supply of both has been tight for years as demand for weight loss outran factories. Adding an unapproved lung use would widen that gap without trial proof.

Bloom's group used U.K. records covering more than a million adults with asthma or COPD to build the new-user cohorts. Dr. Bohee Lee presented the work. The next step she named is a randomized trial with asthma attacks as a planned endpoint. Until that trial exists, the 40% figure is an association in messy real-world data — large, consistent with earlier smaller studies, and not a reason to rewrite an inhaler prescription.