The sky continues to be the limit for semaglutide, the active ingredient in popular drugs Ozempic and Wegovy. Newly published research is the latest to suggest that semaglutide and other GLP-1 drugs can help treat people’s addiction to both opioids and alcohol.
GLP-1 drugs have been a valuable treatment for type 2 diabetes for nearly twenty years. More recently, they’ve substantially changed the landscape of obesity treatment, with clinical trials showing that the newest medications like semaglutide are far more effective at helping people lose weight than diet and exercise alone. Researchers have also now started to study whether GLP-1s can reduce people’s cravings for potentially harmful substances like opioids or alcohol. So far, the evidence for this effect has largely come from animal studies, people’s personal anecdotes, and small studies of GLP-1 users. This new research, published Wednesday in the journal Addiction, takes a more expansive look at the possible benefits of GLP-1s for substance use disorders.
The researchers analyzed the medical records of over a half million people with a history of opioid use disorder (OUD) and over 800,000 people with a history of alcohol use disorder (AUD). They tracked what happened to people with these disorders who were either prescribed a GLP-1 drug or not, for up to two years. Across the board, the researchers found a clear association between GLP-1 use and reduced symptoms of either substance use disorder.
Compared to non-GLP-1 users, people with OUD taking GLP-1s for other conditions were 40% less likely to experience a reported episode of opioid overdose, for instance. Similarly, people with AUD taking GLP-1s were 50% less likely to experience an episode of alcohol intoxication. This reduction in associated risk was similar among different groups of patients commonly prescribed GLP-1s, such as people with type 2 diabetes or people living with obesity.
Other recent studies have analyzed people’s medical records and found a similar positive pattern between GLP-1 use and reduced drug problems. But this study seems to be one of the largest of its kind to date, with data collected from over 130 different health systems. The authors were also explicitly aiming to quantify the potential benefits of these drugs in reducing people’s drug-related symptoms. And given their results, they argue that these drugs may not just be game-changers for obesity, but for treating substance use disorders as well.
“This study’s findings have the potential to suggest significant implications for both clinical practice and public health policy in the coming years,” they wrote. “Future research should focus on prospective clinical trials to validate these findings, explore the underlying mechanisms and determine the long-term efficacy and safety of GIP/GLP-1 RA medications in diverse populations.”
Important as it is to accumulate more evidence for any hypothesis, these sorts of studies alone can’t definitively prove that GLP-1 drugs should be added to the roster of medications for substance use disorder just yet. There are ongoing clinical trials testing semaglutide for alcoholism, and it’s likely that more will follow for opioid use disorder as well. Should these trials validate the findings collected so far, GLP-1s could certainly be an important option for people struggling with drug use, especially since many are unlikely to be treated with existing medications.