New research finds that patients who took the weight loss and diabetes drug semaglutide experienced significant reductions in symptoms of alcohol use disorder. Although this study was small, larger studies are underway that could potentially lead to the use of drugs like semaglutide to treat addiction. Semaglutide (sold under various names such as Ozempic, Mounjaro and Wegovy) has taken the world by storm.
The drug was originally developed as a treatment to control blood sugar levels in people with type 2 diabetes, and early tests showed a positive side effect - weight loss, which has brought it back to market with a completely different image. A recent study found that semaglutide also provides heart benefits in overweight non-diabetic patients.
New research suggests semaglutide may have another potential benefit. A collaboration between the University of Oklahoma (OU) Tulsa and the Oklahoma State University (OSU) Health Sciences Center found that patients who took semaglutide for weight loss also experienced significant reductions in alcohol use disorder (AUD) symptoms.
"This study marks an important step forward in our understanding of semaglutide's potential therapeutic applications in the field of addiction medicine," said Jesse Richards, the study's lead author.
Through retrospective chart review, the researchers identified six patients receiving semaglutide for weight loss who also screened positive for AUD on the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) before initiating semaglutide treatment. AUDIT is a 10-item World Health Organization-approved questionnaire used to screen for drinking problems. Possible scores range from 0 (an abstainer who has never had any alcohol problems) to 40, with a score between 8 and 14 indicating hazardous or harmful drinking, and a score of 15 or higher indicating the possibility of AUD.
Based on improvements in AUDIT scores, all six patients experienced significant reductions in AUD symptoms, with an average reduction of 9.5 points after semaglutide treatment.
Preclinical trials in rats and monkeys have shown that semaglutide is associated with reduced drug and alcohol consumption, and interestingly, many patients taking the drug reported a reduced desire to drink. However, there are no randomized clinical trials linking reductions in AUD symptoms to the use of semaglutide.
Evidence from the current study led to a placebo-controlled clinical trial, Semaglutide Therapy for Alcohol Abstinence (STAR), currently being conducted at the OSU Hardesty Clinical Research and Neuroscience Center in Tulsa, with a sister study ongoing in Baltimore.
"With the publication of this case series in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, the foundation is laid for future clinical trials, such as the STAR study, to tell us definitively whether semaglutide is safe and effective in treating alcohol use disorder," said Kyle Simmons, corresponding author of the study.
These findings open the door to using drugs like semaglutide to treat addictive behaviors. The study was published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.