People recently diagnosed with type 1 diabetes who take low weekly doses of semaglutide, the lively ingredient in Ozempic, may find a way to cut back their reliance on insulin to control their blood sugar, a small study suggests.

The study included 10 patients with type 1 diabetes, a condition that typically develops in childhood or adolescence when the pancreas can’t make enough of the hormone insulin to assist the body use sugars within the weight-reduction plan for energy. To avoid the resulting high blood sugar, individuals with type 1 diabetes are often treated with two varieties of insulin: fast-acting prandial insulin at mealtimes and slow-acting basal insulin during other periods of the day.

All the participants had been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes inside the past six months. On the time participants got their diagnosis, they’d poorly controlled blood sugar, based on blood tests that show the quantity of hemoglobin, a molecule on red blood cells that’s coated with sugar. Their average so-called hemoglobin A1C levels were 11.7; the American Diabetes Association (ADA) recommends goal levels below 7.

Researchers began giving each patient weekly injections of semaglutide, the lively ingredient in Ozempic, with initial doses of 0.125 milligrams (mg) that were regularly increased to as high as 0.5 mg. At the identical time, patients regularly reduced their mealtime insulin doses.

Inside three months of starting semaglutide, all 10 people were capable of stop using mealtime insulin, in line with study results published in The Latest England Journal of Medicine. After six months, 7 of the ten patients now not needed slow-acting basal insulin, either. These results endured throughout all the 12-month study period.

“We were definitely surprised by our findings and in addition quite excited,” lead study writer Paresh Dandona, MD, PhD, senior study writer and professor on the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences on the University at Buffalo in Latest York, said in a statement.

“If these findings are borne out in larger studies over prolonged follow-up periods, it could possibly be probably the most dramatic change in treating type 1 diabetes for the reason that discovery of insulin in 1921,” Dr. Dandona added.

At the same time as patients reduced their reliance on insulin, their blood sugar levels improved, the study also found. Participants had average A1C levels of 5.6 after six months, and 5.7 after 12 months of follow-up.