Sometimes hyped as miracle drugs, even whispered about as elixirs, semaglutide and its brand-name variants are increasingly being taken against obesity and diabetes.
But semaglutide and liraglutide could have other uses, i.e. cutting the health risks caused by drinking too much and curbing addiction to alcohol.
According to the University of Eastern Finland and the Karolinksa Institutet in Stockholm, people with “alcohol use disorder” who took the drugs saw “fewer hospitalisations”.
The effect was also observed for substance use and for physical illnesses, the researchers said after going through Swedish data from 2006 to 2021 covering around 200,000 people with alcohol use disorder.
“Semaglutide was associated with a 36% lower risk, and liraglutide with a 28% lower risk of hospitalisation,” the team found, ahead of their research being published in Jama Psychiatry, an American Medical Association journal.
The drugs “offer promise as a novel treatment to reduce alcohol consumption and to prevent development of alcohol-related outcomes,” the team reported, urging that further randomised clinical trials be staged.
“Both drugs were also associated with a significantly reduced risk of hospitalisation due to any substance use disorder: semaglutide with a 32% lower risk, and liraglutide with a 22% lower risk,” they added.
There have been several reports and multiple anecdotal accounts in recent years of the drugs diluting cravings for booze.
“The research idea stems from patient observations reporting less alcohol consumption since initiating a semaglutide drug,” said University of Eastern Finland postdoctoral researcher and forensic psychiatrist Dr Markku Lähteenvuo. – dpa
