Ozempic’s key ingredient may reduce the desire to drink alcohol

A popular diabetes and weight-loss drug reduced people’s craving for drinking alcohol.

The results, from the first clinical trial of its kind, suggest that semaglutide may hold promise as a treatment for problematic alcohol use. Semaglutide is sold as Ozempic and Wegovy.

Some people have reported that this family of drugs, called GLP-1 agonists, curbs not just the desire to eat, but also to drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes. Data from mice, rats and nonhuman primates back that up. But clear evidence from people was lacking.

The new study included 48 adults, all of whom had alcohol use disorder. None of the participants were seeking treatment for the disorder, which is estimated to have affected roughly 29 percent of United States adults at some point in their lives. Each volunteer was randomly assigned to receive weekly semaglutide injections or a placebo.

At the beginning and end of the nine-week treatment period, participants came into a lab and were offered their preferred alcoholic drink. After receiving semaglutide, people drank less alcohol, clinical psychologist Christian Hendershot, of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and colleagues report February 12 in JAMA Psychiatry. In the lab-based drinking session at the end of the experiment, people who received the placebo drank just under 60 grams of alcohol on average; people on semaglutide drank about half that — a little over 30 grams. A standard 12-ounce can of beer has about 14 grams of alcohol.

What’s more, in the second half of the experiment, people on semaglutide reported drinking about 30 percent fewer drinks on the days they drank versus their baseline drinking habits. People on placebo dropped their drink count on drinking days only a smidge. That finding hints that semaglutide may lessen the amount of alcohol people drink, even if it doesn’t stop them from drinking completely.

The results appear promising, Hendershot says. Still, “it’s best to view these numbers with caution.” Larger studies over longer periods of time are needed to confirm and clarify the effects of GLP-1 drugs on people’s use of alcohol and other harmful substances, including tobacco and opioids.