Ozempic, a diabetes drug that has become a popular drug for weight loss, has another use that could help tens of millions of Americans, researchers say. In a study published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, researchers said people were significantly less likely to be hospitalized with alcohol use disorder when they were using Ozempic or similar drugs known as GLP-1 drugs. The study looked at 228,000 people in Sweden who were diagnosed with AUD between 2006 and 2023, NBC News reports. All the participants also had obesity or Type 2 diabetes.
Researchers said around 60% of participants were hospitalized for AUD at some point, but there were only around 220 hospitalizations—a figure that may have included multiple hospitalizations for individuals—among the 4,300 people using Ozempic or Wegovy. Hospitalizations among those people were lower than among those who were using disulfiram, acamprosate, and naltrexone, drugs that have been approved to treat AUD, reports USA Today. "I see so many patients who do not have good outcomes on the medications we have and who are desperate for help with their addiction," said lead researcher Markku Lähteenvuo. "We really do need more tools in the toolbox."
Around 28 million Americans have AUD, but the pharmacological treatments available "are not very good, and relapse is really common," Alex DiFeliceantonio at Virginia Tech's Fralin Biomedical Research Institute tells NBC News. It's not clear why Ozempic appears to be effective against reducing cravings for alcohol—and for opioids, according to a separate study published in the journal Addiction—but experts believe it may be connected to how the drug creates a feeling of fullness. Researchers not involved with the study of Swedish patients said it is critical to have more robust studies, involving randomized, controlled clinical trials, before GLP-1 drugs can be considered treatments for AUD. (More Ozempic stories.)
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