A new study found that the key ingredient in popular weight loss drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic made people less likely to die from COVID-19 or experience negative side effects from the virus. According to the report published Friday by the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, people taking a 2.4 mg dose of semaglutide, the active component in Ozempic and Wegovy, could still contract COVID-19, but their chances of dying from it fell by 33%.

The study was sponsored Novo Nordisk, the Denmark-based maker of Wegovy and Ozempic.

More than 17,600 people took part in the trial, which began before the pandemic and continued running during it. All of the participants were overweight or obese and suffered from heart illnesses, but were not diabetic.

More than 4,200 of the participants got COVID-19. About half of them were taking Wegovy and half were on a placebo drug. The study said 184 who were infected died, and of those who died, 106 were taking the placebo and 78 were taking Wegovy.

Yale University School of Medicine Professor and JACC editor Harlan Krumholz said in an interview, “I begin to think about the weight loss almost as a side effect, I mean these [drugs] are really promoting health.”

He added, “There may be many mechanisms by which [semaglutide] is making us healthier, and in some ways this is suggesting it’s helping us to resist the adverse consequences of the pandemic.”

JACC published other studies on Friday that showed semaglutide improved symptoms linked to heart failure and inflammation and reduced deaths among patients with chronic kidney disease.

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