AHA Scientific Sessions 2026 AbstractNov 7, 2026, 00:34 GMT

Diabetes drugs linked to fewer deaths in serious mental illness

Compared with another diabetes drug class, the medicines were associated with 1.54 percentage points lower mortality over four years in adults with serious mental illness.

Paper by Angela Kwan, Roger McIntyre · Internal Medicine · Univ of Toronto

Groups of upright people surround an intact dark blue-green heart and a smaller gray heart with gaps in its walls and vessels.

Our read

Interventions

Studied:: Cohort study of adults with serious mental illness, 4-year, against adults starting SGLT2 inhibitors (Multicenter)
What changed:: Deaths over four years were 1.54 percentage points lower with GLP-1RA therapy than with SGLT2 inhibitors
The catch:: Health or care differences between drug groups could explain the mortality association despite matching
In the record:: The 1,366th paper on GLP-1 receptor agonists with results in people; 4,739 on record in all. Its result on mortality agrees with 184 of 204 other findings on record; 1 points the other way and 19 found no change.
Why it’s aging research:: It studies an intervention with evidence of extending healthy life.

Editor of record: Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News

Paper

Adults with and without serious mental illness were compared in an observational analysis of medical records designed to mimic a randomized trial. The 1,528,230 matched adults averaged 55.2 years of age; 58.3% were female. Serious mental illness included major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

The researchers compared people starting glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists, a class of diabetes medicines, with people starting sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors, another diabetes drug class. They matched participants on demographic and health characteristics, including diabetes severity and psychiatric medications. Among adults with serious mental illness, starting the first class was associated with lower four-year mortality and fewer major cardiovascular events. The mortality association emerged within one year and was concentrated in semaglutide and tirzepatide; older drugs in the class showed no advantage.

Why it matters

Cardiovascular disease contributes to shortened life expectancy in serious mental illness. The authors suggest that these medicines may offer a way to narrow that survival gap.

Caveats

Treatment was not randomly assigned, so adults starting the two drug classes may have differed in health or care despite matching. These findings concern adults, and the conference abstract did not report adverse events.