At the beginning of the Ozempic explosion, many users reported a drastic loss of food cravings, from specific vegetables to food and desserts. Some even said they lost their taste for beer and wine.
A group of scientists climbed into those anti-alcohol anecdotes and decided to see if the medicine for weight loss could also serve as treatment for alcohol addiction. They reported promising Recommendations in Jama Psychiatry. The study reported that a small weekly dose of the drug, compared to a placebo, reduces the desire, quantity and frequency of alcohol consumption.
This discovery is especially promising because alcohol abuse is frequent and problematic. In terms of prevalence, according to the National Institute of Alcohol and Alcoholism Abuse of the United States, 28.1 million adults who are 18 years or more reported some form of alcohol consumption disorder in 2023. Younger age groups also reported a significant abuse in alcohol.
Barriers to sobriety
The problem is double. Alcohol abuse has many important health effects. And, like many addictions, it is difficult to treat successfully.
That abuse often becomes great health problems, including death. The United States General Surgeon attributed Around 178,000 deaths in the United States per year to alcohol. Many heavy drinkers also suffer from liver and heart disease. And the most recent research can be attributed to alcohol.
Meanwhile, existing treatments have been a mixed bag, at best. Although a third of the US adults. We have reported heavy drinks at some point in their lives, few have sought treatment. And of those who do it, just a fraction is successful.
Read more: This is how Ozempic really works for weight loss
Reduce alcohol and smoking
To study Semaglutida, the active ingredient in both Ozempic and their partner, the researchers essentially recreated a bar -shaped environment, but began their guests with a kind of shot that is not normally associated with a tavern.
The researchers gathered 48 adults with non -treated alcohol consumption disorder. The men had an average of 14 drinks in a week, as well as two or more episodes with five or more. The women averaged seven per week, with two or more instances of four or more drinks.
A week before their first injection, the participants met in the laboratory environment based. They could consume their favorite drink for two hours. They received injections for nine weeks before re -assembling in the laboratory.
The researchers found that the semaglutida had a stronger effect than other medications designed to reduce alcohol cravings. The Semaglutida group significantly reduced its number of days of excessive consumption of alcohol consumption. In the last month, that group did not report that there are no days of excessive consumption compared to 20 percent of the placebo group. Some smokers in the Semaglutide group also greatly reduced the number of cigarettes per day.
Read more: Ozempic and other LPG-1 can have broader health benefits, but greater risks
Promising results with warnings
The study was relatively small (clinical trials for drugs routinely use hundreds, if not thousands of participants) and relatively short -term. But its results are, however, promising, especially because the semaglutida is already an approved medication.
“These data suggest the potential of the semaglutida and similar drugs to satisfy an unsatisfied need for alcohol consumption disorder,” Klara Klein said, of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of North Carolina, and author of the newspaper in a Press release. “Longer and longer studies are needed in broader populations to completely understand safety and efficacy in people with alcohol consumption disorder, but these initial findings are promising.”
This article does not offer medical advice and should be used only for informative purposes.
Article Sources
Our writers in Discovermagazine.com Use studies reviewed by pairs and high quality sources for our articles, and our editors review to obtain scientific precision and editorial standards. Check the sources used below for this article:
Before joining Discover, Paul Smaglik spent more than 20 years as a scientific journalist, specializing in the United States Life Science Policy and global scientific career problems. He began his career in newspapers, but changed to scientific journals. His work has appeared in publications that include scientists, sciences, nature and American scientific.
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