[wswope]

I read the JACC article too, and thought the NYT claims were decently supported:

> The second unexpected observation was the lower rate of non-CV death with semaglutide vs placebo, particularly infectious deaths, including in patients with reported cases of COVID-19. The mechanism by which semaglutide is associated with lower CV or non-CV mortality is unknown. Weight loss improves traditional cardiometabolic and kidney risk factors,3 such as hypertension, dyslipidemia, renal function,26 and dysglycemia. However, the blood pressure and lipid reductions in SELECT with semaglutide were relatively small compared with those in dedicated risk factor–lowering trials, and the observed reduction in major adverse cardiovascular events is more than would be expected based on those changes.

You could absolutely be right that body weight is a lagging indicator, and these patients are getting a bigger improvement in systemic inflammation/their hematologic profile than weight loss alone would suggest… but running immediately to that conclusion is major hubris in my book. I don’t think it’s remotely implausible that there are one or more yet-unknown metabolic pathways tweaked by GPL1 agonists that could explain the effect.