The weight-loss drug Ozempic can guard against kidney disease in obese people, a new study shows.

Patients taking semaglutide — the active agent in Ozempic and Wegovy — had as much as a 52% reduction in kidney damage, as measured by urine testing, researchers reported Oct. 25 in the journal Nature Medicine. The results will also be presented simultaneously at the American Society of Nephrology’s annual meeting.

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Semaglutide patients also had a 30% reduction in kidney inflammation, researchers found.

“The great thing is that the drug has both direct and indirect effects on the kidneys,” said lead researcher Hiddo Heerspink, a clinical pharmacologist with the University Medical Center Groningen in the Netherlands.

“The drug has direct effects on inflammation parameters in the kidney, and lowers fat tissue around the kidneys, lowering the amount of protein in the urine,” Heerspink said. “And indirectly because it reduces participants‘ weight and blood pressure.”

For the study, researchers recruited 101 obese people with chronic kidney disease in Canada, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands, starting in 2022.

Half received injections of semaglutide for 24 weeks, while the other half received a placebo.

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Participants taking the drug lost about 10% of their weight, and they also experienced a decrease in high blood pressure similar to that from taking a blood pressure medication, researchers found.

The results also show that the drug protected the patients’ kidney health.

“All signals are green to test this drug in a large study,” Heerspink said in a meeting news release. “I would like to find out whether it can lead to fewer dialyses or kidney transplants. And I would also very much like to investigate whether this drug also works positively in patients with kidney damage without obesity.”