Can weight-loss drugs like Ozempic help fight addiction?

Ozempic, the well-known weight-loss drug, is back in the spotlight—this time for its potential to reduce cravings for alcohol and drugs.  

A recent study analysed millions of health records from nearly a decade and revealed that medications like Ozempic and Mounjaro might help individuals battling addiction. These drugs, primarily used to manage diabetes and promote weight loss, showed surprising effects on curbing addictive behaviours.

The impact that these medications appeared to have on reducing addictive behaviours was surprising, said Fares Qeadan, the study’s lead author and an associate professor of biostatistics at Loyola University Chicago, in an interview with NPR.

So, what exactly does this new research uncover? Could this finding offer a breakthrough in addiction treatment? Let’s take a closer look.

The study

In the new study, researchers analysed the health records of over 1.3 million individuals with alcohol and substance use disorders in the US, spanning an 8-year period starting in 2014.

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The research was published in the scientific journal Addiction last week.

The findings, published in the scientific journal Addiction last week, revealed that people with alcohol addiction who were prescribed Ozempic or similar drugs had a 50 per cent lower rate of binge drinking compared to those not on these medications.

This analysis focused on over 800,000 individuals with a history of alcohol use disorder, out of which around 5,600 had a prescription for the drugs.

Similarly, for those with opioid addiction, the study found a 40 per cent lower rate of overdose among those taking these medications.

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The researchers examined over 500,000 people with opioid use disorder, with approximately 8,100 of them being prescribed Ozempic or related treatments.

The researchers noted that this is the first large-scale study with humans on the potential use of weight loss drugs to reduce addiction risks. Previously, several preclinical trials in animals have shown similar declines in addictive behaviours.

“These results add to a lot of promising evidence that we might eventually be able to utilise these treatments for substance use disorder,” Christian Hendershot, a director at the University of Southern California Institute for Addiction Science, told NPR. He was not involved in the study.

How weight loss medication help fight addiction?

For many years, researchers have known that the brain mechanisms controlling food-seeking behaviours overlap with those that drive addiction, Dr. Lorenzo Leggio, clinical director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse, said in a recent NPR interview.

While scientists still don’t fully understand how medications like Ozempic work in this context, there’s growing evidence that they influence the brain in ways that reduce cravings for both food and addictive substances.

“We believe that these medications are active in the brain and, similar to their actions on food, they also curb cravings for addictive drugs,” Leggio explained.

Hendershot added that these medications are very effective at inducing feelings of satiety, which is why they are used for weight loss. Researchers suspect that this sense of fullness could also be reducing substance use in patients who take these drugs.

“Another potential mechanism is that these medications tend to reduce the reward or hedonic value of highly palatable foods and addictive drugs,” Hendershot said.

Study author Fares Qeadan noted that these findings ”provide an exciting direction for future research” into how Ozempic and similar medications could one day be used as part of addiction treatment.

A word of caution

Matt Field, a professor of psychology at the University of Sheffield, has expressed some reservations about the findings of the study.

He pointed out that the results mostly focus on “very extreme instances of substance intoxication,” such as overdoses.

“Those outcomes are very different from the outcomes used when researchers test new treatments for addiction. In those cases, we might assess whether the treatment helps people achieve complete abstinence, or if it reduces the amount or frequency of substance use,” Field told Politico.“Those aspects could not be measured in this study.”

Lead author Fares Qeadan and his colleagues also acknowledged that while the study’s results appear “promising,” they are based on observational data. They emphasised that more research, particularly through clinical trials, is needed to confirm these findings.

Dr Céline Gounder, editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health News, echoed this caution in CBS News report. “These drugs are working on the brain, and we don’t know what the long-term effects of this kind of hormone activity in the brain might be,” Gounder said.

She further added, “We don’t know what the long-term risks for cancer could be. There are known risks of pancreatitis, gallbladder issues, kidney problems, and some reports of suicidal thoughts, which raises concerns.”

With input from agencies