Research

Hormonal

In obese patients with type 2 diabetes, GLP-1 receptor agonists significantly reduce the risk of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) compared to placebo, whereas SGLT-2 inhibitors show a non-significant trend.

If you have type 2 diabetes and are obese, GLP-1 receptor agonists (like liraglutide, semaglutide, or dulaglutide) have been proven to significantly lower your risk of major heart events compared to a placebo. SGLT-2 inhibitors also help but did not reach statistical significance in this specific obese subgroup analysis. Discuss GLP-1 RAs with your doctor as a first-line treatment for cardiovascular protection.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
In T2DM patients with obesity, GLP-1 RAs significantly reduced the risk of MACE versus placebo (relative risk, RR [95% confidence interval, CI]: 0.88 [0.81–0.96]), whereas SGLT-2 inhibitors showed a tendency (RR [95% CI]: 0.91 [0.83–1.00]).
Kazushi Uneda et al. · Scientific Reports · 2021

Why this rating

Network meta-analysis of 12 high-quality RCTs with >100,000 participants, though indirect comparison limits direct head-to-head certainty.

Source

Systematic review and meta-analysis for prevention of cardiovascular complications using GLP-1 receptor agonists and SGLT-2 inhibitors in obese diabetic patients

Kazushi Uneda et al. · Scientific Reports · 2021

DOI 10.1038/s41598-021-89620-7

Meta-analysis · 12 studiesCited 25×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

This is one finding among thousands. Every one is graded and traced to its source, so you can see what the evidence actually supports. Browse the research →