{"id":27087,"date":"2026-04-03T14:20:41","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T14:20:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/youskill.us\/?p=27087"},"modified":"2026-04-03T14:20:41","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T14:20:41","slug":"weight-loss-medication-linked-to-lower-risk-of-drug-addiction-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/youskill.us\/?p=27087","title":{"rendered":"Weight-loss medication linked to lower risk of drug addiction: study"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

“Effect was not confined to one substance; it was evident across the board for all addictive substances,” says researcher<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

PARIS: Taking a new generation of weight-loss medication is linked to a significantly lower risk of addiction and death from drugs such as cocaine and alcohol, a large US study suggested on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The massively popular drugs known as GLP-1 agonists could even halve people’s risk of dying from a range of harmful substances, according to the research published in the BMJ journal on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

However outside experts urged caution in interpreting the results, which do not establish a causal link, calling for clinical trials to find out more.<\/p>\n

As GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic have transformed the treatment of diabetes and obesity in recent years, they have also shown signs of helping with a surprising variety of health problems \u2014 including addiction.<\/p>\n

The US team of researchers analysed the medical records of more than 600,000 people with type 2 diabetes in the US Department of Veterans Affairs’ healthcare database who took either GLP-1s or an older kind of diabetes drug.<\/p>\n

The researchers then looked at the effect of drugs including alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, nicotine and opioids over three years.<\/p>\n

For veterans who already had a drug addiction, taking GLP-1s had a 50% lower rate of death and a 40% lower rate of overdose.<\/p>\n

The rate of emergency department visits was more than 30% lower, while hospital admissions and suicidal thoughts or attempts were down by a quarter.<\/p>\n

Among veterans with no history of drug addiction, taking GLP-1s was linked with a 14% lower risk of developing one.<\/p>\n

‘Quite a surprise’<\/h2>\n

Ziyad Al-Aly, an epidemiologist at Washington University in St Louis and the study’s senior author, told\u00a0AFP<\/i>\u00a0it was “quite a surprise” how many substance-use disorders the GLP-1s appeared to prevent.<\/p>\n

\n
\"This
This picture taken on October 23, 2023, shows boxes of the medication Ozempic, an injectable antidiabetic drug, in a pharmacy in Riedisheim, eastern France. \u2014 AFP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

“The effect was not confined to one substance, it was evident across the board for all addictive substances,” he told\u00a0AFP<\/i>.<\/p>\n

The research is observational, so cannot directly prove that the GLP-1s caused the results seen in the study.<\/p>\n

And exactly how these appetite-suppressing drugs could fight addiction remains unclear. However there have been suggestions they could have an impact on how our brains reward certain behaviours.<\/p>\n

The researchers also warned that the participants were mostly older white men \u2014 though the results appeared consistent for women as well.<\/p>\n

Fares Qeadan, a biostatistics expert at Loyola University Chicago not involved in the research, said the “implications are pragmatic rather than revolutionary”.<\/p>\n

“Policymakers should therefore avoid premature ‘Ozempic for addiction’ narratives,” Qeadan said in a linked editorial in the BMJ.<\/p>\n

And even if clinical trials confirm these drugs are effective against addiction, they are expensive and not available equally to all countries, he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Effect was not confined to one substance; it was evident across the board for all addictive substances,” says researcher PARIS: Taking a new generation of weight-loss medication is linked to a significantly lower risk of addiction and death from drugs such as cocaine and alcohol, a large US study suggested on Thursday. The massively popular … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Weight-loss medication linked to lower risk of drug addiction: study”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27088,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/youskill.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/youskill.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/youskill.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youskill.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youskill.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27087"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/youskill.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27089,"href":"https:\/\/youskill.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27087\/revisions\/27089"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youskill.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/youskill.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youskill.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youskill.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}