Ozempic and asthma: what the 2026 study found and what it did not

Semaglutide, the medicine in Ozempic and Wegovy, is not approved to treat asthma. The headline finding, nearly 40% fewer asthma attacks, comes from an analysis of UK health records presented at a medical congress, and its lead researcher says it needs confirmation in clinical trials before it changes anyone’s treatment [3] [4].

What was presented in September 2026

The European Respiratory Society announced the results on September 8, 2026, at its congress in Barcelona [6]. The work was led by Chloe Bloom of Imperial College London [15].

• Design. Researchers used UK electronic medical records to run four parallel studies. The four groups ranged from 20,000 to 22,000 people, and each compared new GLP-1 users with new users of a sulfonylurea, an older diabetes drug [2].
• Result. Among people with asthma or COPD, attacks and flare-ups were less common in the GLP-1 groups than in comparable sulfonylurea groups. The strongest link was for semaglutide in people with asthma, about 40% fewer asthma attacks, and semaglutide was also linked to about 20% fewer COPD flare-ups [3].
• Why records, not a trial. The lead researcher, Chloe Bloom, notes that asthma and COPD have never been measured as outcomes in GLP-1 drug trials [5].

The society’s own headline says semaglutide “can reduce” asthma attacks by up to 40 per cent [1]. The study behind it compared records of people who were prescribed different medicines. It did not assign medicines at random, so it can show an association, not that semaglutide caused the drop.

As of this page’s update date, the 2026 analysis did not appear in our PubMed searches as a full paper. The society’s release links to the abstract as a downloaded file, which we did not open, so the numbers above are the ones the society published.

The earlier study, which is on PubMed

The same Imperial College team published a related study in JAMA Internal Medicine in 2025 [7]. It used UK primary care records linked to hospital and death data covering 2004 to 2020 [8], and it looked only at adults with asthma and type 2 diabetes who were starting metformin [9].

• Out of more than 2 million adults with asthma in the records, 4,278 were included in the main within-person analysis [10].
• Metformin was linked to fewer asthma attacks, and GLP-1 medicines were the only add-on diabetes drugs linked to a further drop, with an incidence rate ratio of 0.60 [11] [12].

This was also an observational study. It did not test semaglutide on its own against a placebo, and it did not include people with asthma who do not have type 2 diabetes.

What the research does not show

• It does not show that semaglutide prevents asthma attacks, only that people who took it had fewer of them in the records [4].
• It does not settle why. The 2025 paper reported that the link did not appear to run through blood sugar control or weight loss [18], but a records study cannot prove a mechanism.
• It does not cover people without diabetes or obesity who might want semaglutide only for their lungs. Bloom says people with asthma or COPD should not start a GLP-1 for their lung condition outside current prescribing guidance [4].

What the labels say

Ozempic is approved for adults with type 2 diabetes: to improve blood sugar control, and to lower certain heart and kidney risks in that group [13] [16] [17]. Wegovy’s approved uses include weight management and lowering the risk of heart attack, stroke and cardiovascular death in adults with heart disease and obesity or overweight [14]. Neither label mentions asthma, so a prescription written for asthma alone would be off-label. See what each GLP-1 is approved for.

If you have asthma and already qualify for a GLP-1 because of diabetes or weight, you can bring this research to your prescriber. Keep using your asthma medicines as prescribed: these studies compared GLP-1 medicines with another diabetes drug, not with asthma treatment [2].