GLP-1 Medications Linked to Reduced Risk of Substance Use Disorders

Confirmed details from the source coverage

Patients have reported decreased interest in alcohol and nicotine when taking GLP-1s, and observational studies have shown an association between treatment with GLP-1 medication and lower risk of alcohol and cannabis use disorders, opioid overdose, and alcohol-related hospitalization.

No study has asked the broader question: do GLP-1s work against substance use disorders across the board, and can they reduce the serious harms of addiction, including overdose and drug-related death?

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veterans with type 2 diabetes, the WashU Medicine team found GLP-1s are tied to a reduced risk of developing substance use disorders across all major addictive substances and to a reduced risk of severe harm, including overdose and death, in people who already have such disorders.

Context that stayed inside the record

Quieting the roar of addiction In addition to the challenges posed by treating multiple substance use disorders at once, Al-Aly noted that there are some substances, such as methamphetamine, for which there is no medicinal treatment — a potentially even bigger obstacle to recovery.

Connecting those anecdotal accounts with the fact that there are GLP-1 receptors in the brain in regions that modulate reward processing, and therefore might affect cravings, Al-Aly and his collaborators investigated whether GLP-1s could treat all substance use disorders.

Compared to patients treated for diabetes with a non-GLP-1 medication, GLP-1 use was associated with 14% reduced risk of developing any substance use disorder.

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Risk of developing each substance use disorder also declined significantly — by 18% for alcohol, 14% for cannabis, 20% for cocaine and nicotine, and 25% for opioids.

Sources: Clinicaltrialvanguard, Washu.