- Posted March 6, 2025
GLP-1 Drugs Improve Outlook For Kidney Transplants
GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic can help kidney transplant patients avoid organ failure and live longer, a new study suggests.
The drugs help manage patients’ type 2 diabetes and promote weight loss, both of which improve the chances of a successful kidney transplant, researchers added.
Kidney transplant patients prescribed GLP-1 drugs were 49% less likely to experience organ failure, in which their new kidney stops working and they have to resume dialysis, researchers reported March 3 in The Lancet.
Patients taking GLP-1 drugs also had a 31% lower risk of dying within five years of starting on the medication, researchers said.
“Our study results are the strongest evidence to date that GLP-1 agonist drugs are largely safe and effective tools for addressing type 2 diabetes in kidney transplant recipients,” lead researcher Dr. Babak Orandi said in a news release. He's a transplant surgeon and obesity medicine specialist at NYU Langone Health in New York City.
Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) drugs mimic the GLP-1 hormone, which helps control insulin and blood sugar levels, decreases appetite and slows digestion of food.
GLP-1 drugs include semaglutide, liraglutide and dulaglutide, now marketed as Ozempic, Wegovy, Saxenda, Victoza and Trulicity.
Both diabetes and obesity increase the risk of a kidney transplant going bad, researchers said. Given that, it makes sense that GLP-1 drugs might help.
However, known side effects of the drugs include inflammation of the pancreas and liver problems, which might work against a kidney transplant, researchers noted.
There’s also been concern that GLP-1 drugs might increase the risk of a rare form of thyroid cancer in patients taking immune-suppressing drugs to prevent transplant rejection, researchers added.
To check the risks and benefits of the drugs, researchers reviewed the medical records of more than 18,000 kidney transplant recipients with diabetes between 2013 and 2020.
Of those, more than 1,900 had been prescribed a GLP-1 drug.
Although the study found benefits, it also discovered some increased risks associated with the drugs.
Kidney transplant patients taking GLP-1 drugs had a 49% greater risk of developing diabetic retinopathy, a potentially blinding condition caused by damage to the light-sensitive tissue lining the back of the eyes.
“Our findings also show that while the benefits of GLP-1 drugs are significant, their use does come with some added risk of diabetic retinopathy, suggesting that physicians need to carefully monitor the eye health of kidney transplant recipients with diabetes who are started on these drugs,” senior investigator Mara McAdams-DeMarco said in a news release. She is an associate professor of surgery and population health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.
Orandi said this risk can be managed by screening for diabetic retinopathy in transplant patients, particularly in people with uncontrolled diabetes, and making sure blood sugar levels are stable before prescribing GLP-1 drugs.
Doctors also might consider starting with lower doses of GLP-1 drugs and slowly increasing them for people with severe diabetes or a history of eye problems, he added.
More research is needed to figure out exactly why GLP-1 drugs might help kidney transplants succeed, as well as why they increase the risk of diabetic retinopathy, researchers concluded.
More information
The National Kidney Foundation has more on GLP-1 drugs.
SOURCE: NYU Langone Health, news release, March 5, 2025
