Drugs from the family of GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide 1) hormone agonists such as Ozempic or Zepbound have represented a revolution in the global pharmaceutical market. The success of these medications intended for the treatment of diabetes has to do with their slimming effect, but the ramifications of this phenomenon go even further.
There is already evidence. One of these ramifications has to do with alcohol consumption: a study from a few months ago found evidence that semaglutide, the active compound used in drugs such as Ozempic or Wegovy, can also help in the treatment of alcohol addiction.
New studies confirm it: In 2026 The Lancet published a larger, longer trial with 108 participants, half on semaglutin and half on placebo for 26 weeks. The result was that people who took semaglutide reduced the days of heavy consumption by 41.1% compared to 26.4% of those who took the placebo.
Chronicle of a social phenomenon. Ozempic began to gain popularity about two years ago when it was beginning to be used not to keep glycemic levels under control in people with type II diabetes, but as a weight loss treatment for both people with diabetes and those who just wanted to lose weight. In parallel, several clinical trials supported this effect and regulatory bodies approved the use of the drug for this second use.
This success led to the appearance of other side effects associated with this compound, some of them positive. It was then that some laboratories got to work to test these effects. Among them an apparent reduction in alcohol consumption among those who were under this treatment.
How does it work? The GLP-1 hormone plays several functions in our body, one of them being to tell us that we have satisfied our appetite. That is why drugs that work like their analogues in our body generate the same feeling of satiety, which in turn implies that we will eat less and therefore lose weight.
But soon some users began to realize that this not only affected the food, but also the alcohol they consumed. Although the mechanism is not entirely clear, it can be assumed that the same mechanisms are at work.
There is another factor to take into account, and that is that among the side effects Of drugs similar to Ozempic we can find stomach symptoms such as nausea and vomiting. This can also lead to making alcoholic beverages, as well as other foods, less palatable.
That’s what studies are like. These studies are carried out through a randomized placebo-controlled trial. That is to say, is distributed randomly participants into two groups: one is treated with semaglutide and the other with a placebo. They thus found that the effects of the treatment were greater than those of a simple placebo, that is, the participants drank less alcohol. Although the number of days on which the participants drank was not reduced, they did so in smaller volumes.
“These data suggest the potential for semaglutide and similar drugs to fill an existing need for a treatment for alcohol use disorder,” explained in a press release Klara Klein in the first published study on this, member of the team responsible for the study. “Larger studies (…) are necessary to fully understand safety and efficacy in people with (this) disorder, but these initial results are promising.”
The team presented the details of the trial in an article in the magazine JAMA Psychiatry.
The analyzes continue. The small sample size in this study suggests that there is still much work to do. If we want to better understand the potential of Ozempic to fight addictions and similar disorders, experiments with larger samples and studies will be needed to better understand the underlying biological mechanisms, as well as the potential risks of this use.
All this while other teams investigate other potential risks and benefits of this family of drugs. An example of the potential benefits yet to be explored is in heart healtha context in which we have begun to see some potential benefits but which, as in the case of excessive alcohol consumption, we still need to explore further, but the first studies seem to go in the same direction.
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