{"id":22064,"date":"2025-02-12T15:03:05","date_gmt":"2025-02-12T16:03:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=22064"},"modified":"2025-02-12T16:29:49","modified_gmt":"2025-02-12T16:29:49","slug":"ozempic-can-curb-drinking-new-research-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=22064","title":{"rendered":"Ozempic Can Curb Drinking, New Research Shows"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Scientists have several theories about how the drug might reduce alcohol cravings.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

Some people who take drugs like Ozempic have noticed a surprising but welcome side effect: They drink less.<\/a><\/p>\n

A paper published Wednesday<\/a> offers the strongest evidence yet that this is more than just anecdote, or a placebo effect: It found that semaglutide, the substance in Ozempic and the weight loss drug Wegovy, could in fact help curb alcohol cravings. It is the first randomized controlled trial on semaglutide and alcohol consumption.<\/p>\n

The study followed 48 adults who met criteria for alcohol use disorder, a condition often characterized by difficulty controlling alcohol consumption. Half of the patients took low doses of semaglutide, and half received placebo shots. The participants spent two hours in a lab room stocked with their preferred alcoholic beverages \u2014 once before they started taking the drug, and once after. People in the study also reported how much they drank every day for nine weeks.<\/p>\n

Those who took semaglutide still drank about as often as those who took the placebo. But by the second month of the study, people taking semaglutide were drinking nearly 30 percent less, on average, on days they consumed alcohol \u2014 compared to an average reduction of about two percent in the placebo group. People who took semaglutide were also more likely to report fewer days of heavy drinking than those on the placebo, and to say that their cravings for alcohol had diminished.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\n
\n

The effects on alcohol consumption were larger than the researchers anticipated, given previous data on other medications for alcohol use disorder, said Christian Hendershot, director of clinical research at the University of Southern California Institute for Addiction Science and the lead author on the study.<\/p>\n

There has been so much research on drugs like semaglutide and alcohol, \u201cyou can\u2019t even keep up,\u201d said W. Kyle Simmons, a professor of pharmacology and physiology at Oklahoma State University who is currently conducting a trial on the medication\u2019s effects on alcohol use disorder.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.<\/p>\n

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into<\/a>\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe<\/a>\u00a0for all of The Times.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.<\/p>\n

Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scientists have several theories about how the drug might reduce alcohol cravings.Some people who take drugs like Ozempic have noticed a surprising but welcome side effect: They drink less.A paper published Wednesday offers the strongest evidence yet that this is more than just anecdote, or a placebo effect: It found that semaglutide, the substance in Ozempic and the weight loss drug Wegovy, could in fact help curb alcohol cravings. It is the first randomized controlled trial on semaglutide and alcohol consumption.The study followed 48 adults who met criteria for alcohol use disorder, a condition often characterized by difficulty controlling alcohol consumption. Half of the patients took low doses of semaglutide, and half received placebo shots. The participants spent two hours in a lab room stocked with their preferred alcoholic beverages \u2014 once before they started taking the drug, and once after. People in the study also reported how much they drank every day for nine weeks.Those who took semaglutide still drank about as often as those who took the placebo. But by the second month of the study, people taking semaglutide were drinking nearly 30 percent less, on average, on days they consumed alcohol \u2014 compared to an average reduction of about two percent in the placebo group. People who took semaglutide were also more likely to report fewer days of heavy drinking than those on the placebo, and to say that their cravings for alcohol had diminished.The effects on alcohol consumption were larger than the researchers anticipated, given previous data on other medications for alcohol use disorder, said Christian Hendershot, director of clinical research at the University of Southern California Institute for Addiction Science and the lead author on the study.There has been so much research on drugs like semaglutide and alcohol, \u201cyou can\u2019t even keep up,\u201d said W. Kyle Simmons, a professor of pharmacology and physiology at Oklahoma State University who is currently conducting a trial on the medication\u2019s effects on alcohol use disorder.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22066,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22064"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22067,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22064\/revisions\/22067"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}