Patients with T2D and asthma who take GLP-1 receptor agonists to control their blood sugar also experience improvements in their asthma symptoms, according to a study published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care. Researchers from several hospitals—Vanderbilt, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Massachusetts, and University Hospital Zurich in Switzerland—used electronic health record data of patients with asthma and T2D who started taking GLP-1 receptor agonists between March 2018 and January 2020. The study showed that patients who are started on these medications reported less asthma exacerbation, with less need for oral steroids, and fewer asthma-related symptoms during a 6-month period. Researchers at Vanderbilt have also completed preclinical models, finding that these medications reduce allergic airway inflammation and viral-induced airway inflammation. Patients reported better breathing and less cough and shortness of breath. “What this means for us is that for patients who have T2D and asthma, it suggests that the medications they’re being treated with for their T2D may have direct and beneficial effects on their asthma,” said a study coauthor. “Our patients with obesity and T2D who have asthma are the ones who seem to respond most poorly to the conventional asthma medications that have been around for the last number of decades. We think that this medication class would really target a patient population that even today struggles to get adequate control of their asthma.”
