For years, people taking Ozempic or other similar drugs for diabetes and weight loss have noticed the medicines don’t just curb their desire to eat; for some, they also lead them to drink less alcohol.
Now, the first clinical trial – although relatively small and limited in duration – has confirmed it.
A study of 48 people with signs of moderate alcohol-use disorder found that those taking low doses of semaglutide – the generic name of Ozempic – for nine weeks saw significantly greater reductions in how much alcohol they drank, as well as cravings for alcohol, compared with people on a placebo.
The results were published on Wednesday in the journal JAMA Psychiatry.
The findings underscore what multiple analyses of real-world use of the so-called GLP-1 medicines, as well as studies in animals, had already hinted at: Ozempic and similar drugs, already incredibly popular, could help reduce risks of overconsuming alcohol, if the results bear out in larger and longer trials.
“We hoped to see a reduction in drinking and craving,” said Christian Hendershot, director of clinical research at the University of Southern California Institute for Addiction Science and the lead author of the study.
