Ozempic has taken the nation by storm as a popular diabetes and weight-loss drug, but new studies report that it could also be effective in reducing people’s cravings for alcohol. Semaglutide, a key ingredient in treatments like Ozempic and Wegovy, may be the next big treatment for alcoholism. The report was published in JAMA Psychiatry on February 12, 2025.
It has been previously reported that GLP-1 agonists, the family that semaglutide belongs to, curbs hunger and the desire to drink and smoke cigarettes. However, most of this data comes from mice, rats, and nonhuman primates. Before now, there has been little evidence that suggests the same concept would work on humans.
Now, a clinical trial that included 48 adults who had some form of alcohol-use disorder is gaining major attention. In the study, none of the participants were seeking treatment for their disorder, a condition that about 29 percent of US adults face at some point in their lives. Each adult was randomly assigned a placebo or weekly semaglutide injections. Participants were asked to come into the lab at the start and end of the nine-week treatment period to assess their inclination to drink. They were all offered their preferred alcoholic drink.
After receiving the semaglutide injections, participants drank less alcohol. At the end of the experiment, the lab had a drinking session where they noted that people who received the placebo drank almost 60 grams of alcohol, whereas people who took the injections drank about half–just over 30 grams. For comparison, a standard 12-ounce can of beer has 14 grams of alcohol. What is more remarkable is that in the second half of the experiment, people taking semaglutide reported drinking 30 percent fewer drinks compared to their baseline drinking habits. Adults on the placebo only dropped their alcohol consumption by a small amount. These findings suggest that semaglutide may lessen people’s desire to drink alcohol and potentially stop individuals from drinking completely.
There has been a steady increase in media from health officials stating that people should be consuming less alcohol or abstaining from it entirely in order to improve health outcomes. Former US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued an advisory warning stating that alcohol raises the risk of various cancers and called for updated warning labels on alcoholic beverages.
Clinical psychologist Christian Hendershot of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles noted that while these results are promising, it is best to view the numbers with caution. He emphasizes that larger studies over longer periods of time are necessary to solidify the effectiveness of drugs in the GLP-1 family, not only on alcohol consumption but on other harmful substances like tobacco and opioids.
In their paper, Hendershot and his colleagues note that there are three medications approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for alcohol-use disorders, but less than two percent of people actually take the treatment. According to Dr. Lorenzo Leggio, a physician-scientist at the National Institutes of Health, “More research is needed to understand the mechanism(s) of action of these medications in AUD.”
