Ozempic and related medicine aren’t only for weight reduction, increasingly analysis is discovering. New information is the newest to point out that GLP-1 medicines assist decrease folks’s alcohol consumption, too.
Scientists in Eire and Saudi Arabia carried out the examine, which concerned round 200 sufferers who had been prescribed GLP-1 medicine to handle their weight problems. They discovered that folks not solely misplaced weight on the medicine, in addition they tended to scale back their alcohol consumption—by as much as two-thirds for many who drank probably the most beforehand. The findings strengthen the case for GLP-1s as an habit therapy, the researchers say.
Semaglutide (the lively ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy) and related GLP-1 medicine are far more practical at serving to folks drop some weight than weight-reduction plan and train alone. However some scientists have additionally begun to note that these medicine might assist scale back folks’s cravings for issues in addition to meals, together with probably dangerous medicine like opioids, cocaine, and alcohol. Early research have began to help these anecdotal observations as nicely.
This new examine was potential, that means the researchers proactively tracked how folks’s alcohol use modified after beginning GLP-1 remedy (many previous related research had been retrospective, which solely look again in time). The examine individuals had been real-life sufferers prescribed both semaglutide or liraglutide (an older GLP-1 drug) for weight reduction. The individuals reported their stage of alcohol use earlier than beginning the drug, then had been requested to return again for follow-up visits three and 6 months later.
Total, 188 folks returned for at the least one follow-up go to. And individuals who drank alcohol reported consuming much less on common after beginning a GLP-1 drug. This discount was particularly obvious in those that drank probably the most to start with: excessive shoppers (outlined as consuming over 11 drinks per week) reported a 68% discount of their alcohol use, from round 23 drinks per week on common to eight drinks weekly. That stage of discount is similar to the effectiveness of current therapies for alcohol use dysfunction, the examine researchers be aware.
“Our outcomes show a big discount in alcohol consumption amongst sufferers handled with GLP-1 RAs,” they wrote of their paper, which is about to be introduced this weekend on the annual European Congress on Weight problems. The findings had been additionally revealed earlier this yr within the journal Diabetes, Weight problems and Metabolism.
The examine does have limitations, similar to a scarcity of a management group and a comparatively small pattern dimension. There may be additionally nonetheless some thriller as how precisely these medicine might have an effect on drug cravings, although it’s suspected that GLP-1 receptors within the mind regulate our response to rewarding and probably addictive stimuli like alcohol. However the proof is mounting for GLP-1s having one other life as a therapy for substance use issues.
The authors be aware that there was a weak optimistic correlation between the quantity of weight somebody misplaced and the way a lot much less alcohol they consumed—a connection that is smart, given how wealthy in energy alcoholic drinks are typically. So on the very least, these medicine may serve a twin perform for folks fighting their weight and their consuming habits on the identical time, the authors say.
“These findings counsel a possible therapeutic function for GLP-1 RAs in managing co-occurring weight problems and alcohol use,” the researchers wrote.
In the end, it’ll take randomized and managed scientific trials to actually know whether or not semaglutide can turn out to be a dependable front-line possibility for substance use issues, a few of that are already underway.
