Do the heart benefits go away if I stop taking it? — anyone have experience?

BethLabQueen said:

Senior perspective on cardiovascular risk: I'm 68 years old and started this journey skeptically.

Filing a mild objection. Mild because I might be wrong; an objection because nobody has addressed the case that does not fit. The "earlier than weight loss explains" argument is weaker than this thread makes it sound. Blood pressure and inflammatory markers move fast and are downstream of early weight loss, so the mechanism is not as cleanly separable as the summaries imply.

LibrarianMeg said:

Prescribed on cardiovascular grounds rather than for weight, and almost everything written for patients assumes the opposite.

LibrarianMeg said:

...we don't know the long-term effects of cardiovascular risk...

This is a fair point, and I think intellectual honesty requires acknowledging it. GLP-1 agonists in their current form have ~8-10 years of human exposure data. That's not nothing, but it's not 30+ years either.

However: the risk-benefit calculation should also consider the KNOWN long-term effects of untreated obesity — diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, joint destruction, reduced lifespan by 5-10 years.

Uncertainty about GLP-1 long-term safety vs certainty about obesity consequences. The calculus seems clear to me, but reasonable people can disagree.

BenResearch_OR said:

The "earlier than weight loss explains" argument is weaker than this thread makes it sound.

Anti-inflammatory mechanisms of GLP-1 agonists and cardiovascular risk: beyond weight loss, GLP-1R activation directly suppresses NF-κB signaling, reduces NLRP3 inflammasome activation, and decreases monocyte/macrophage adhesion to endothelium[1].

Clinical correlates: hsCRP reduction of 30-60% (consistently seen across trials), reduced carotid intima-media thickness, and decreased coronary plaque inflammation on PET imaging.

These anti-inflammatory effects likely contribute to the cardiovascular benefit seen in SELECT — and may explain benefits beyond what weight loss alone would predict.

One thing that is still open after GraceAZ_72’s answer:

How would you tell the difference between that and the alternative explanation?

Dr.DermMIA said:

Anti-inflammatory mechanisms of GLP-1 agonists and cardiovascular risk: beyond weight loss, GLP-1R activation directly suppresses NF-κB signaling,…

6 month update on cardiovascular risk: down 40 lbs, off blood pressure meds, A1C normalized. Genuinely life-changing.