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When Cherie Ferguson started taking Ozympic last year, she said she hoped to lose the 50 kilograms she had gained during the Covid-19 pandemic.
She more than three months They spoke reported in June that the drug — approved for type 2 diabetes and used off-label for weight loss — helped reduce the constant chatter in her mind, just as she had hoped.
But it had another unintended effect: Ferguson said she lost her desire to drink alcohol and use her vape pen.
“It's like someone comes and turns on the light, and you see the room for what it is,” she said. “And all those vapes and cigarettes you've been doing for years, they just don't seem that appealing anymore. It's very, very strange. Very strange.”
It is the feeling expressed. Thousands In a class known as GLP-1 receptor agonists and approximately 15 million Americans who take these drugs Recent polls. And now Olympic maker Novo Nordisk says it plans to study the phenomenon.
The company plans to evaluate the effects of semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozympic, on the use of other alcoholic beverages in a new release this month. Clinical trial In alcohol-related liver disease – although cutting down on drinking was not the main goal of the study.
The Danish pharmaceutical giant has been talking since at least last year He didn't intend to study semaglutide — approved as Wegovy for weight loss — in areas such as alcohol addiction, despite several anecdotal reports, such as in Ferguson, and Educational studies They are already underway.
Novo Nordisk reiterated that position Wednesday, saying the main goal of the new trial was to assess whether the drugs could improve liver health. The main measure was the effect of the drugs on the improvement of liver fibrosis, or scarring, over 28 weeks.
“Secondary endpoints include safety and tolerability and changes in alcohol consumption,” a Novo Nordisk spokesperson said in an email. “There is a significant unmet medical need in alcohol-related liver disease, and the first line of treatment for the disease is lifestyle intervention to avoid alcohol.”
The beginning of the trial reported According to Bloomberg News, it aims to enroll about 240 participants and is scheduled to begin on May 20, according to a government database.
“Although not all patients in the trial have alcohol use disorders, it is natural to include alcohol consumption as a secondary factor,” a Novo Nordisk spokesperson said, noting that the trial is part of the company's broader plan to address liver disease.
However, researchers in addiction science cheered the news.
“Those of us who work in this area see this as a step in the right direction,” said Christian Hendershott, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Alcohol Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. One of the few studies in this area, he said in an email Wednesday. “More treatment options are desperately needed for this group.”
Novo Nordisk's CEO told in August that the company had heard many similar reports.
“We know that one of the benefits of obesity is that it solves this need, the desire, the need to snack and eat,” says Lars Froergaard Jørgensen. “It's this activity in the brain, in this desire center, that may be useful for some addictions.”
Animal studies suggest the same, National Institutes of Health researcher Dr. Lorenzo Leggio told last year. He published it Research In May 2023, they showed that semaglutide reduced alcohol drinking in rats, noting that “at least one of the mechanisms by which these drugs reduce alcohol drinking is by reducing the beneficial effects of alcohol” related to the neurotransmitter dopamine.
Jorgensen said Novo Nordisk had not studied that effect and had no plans to do so at the time.
“It's not the easiest thing to study,” he said. “You shouldn't expect us to study these addictions extensively.”
“The opportunity to collect data when we do larger studies,” Horgenson said, “also allows us to use artificial intelligence to use real-world experiences with drugs to find the effects of things like alcohol use.”
A spokeswoman for Eli Lilly, which makes tirzepatide-based competitors to Ozympic and Wegovi called Mounjaro and Zepbound, said Wednesday that it has seen “incredible feedback from publications that could use GLP-1s for additional indications for addiction.”
But while the Indianapolis-based drugmaker continues to “evaluate future options for tirzepatide,” a spokeswoman said the company has not announced any plans to develop the drug for those uses.
Drugs for addiction, and especially alcohol abuse, have not been financially successful for the pharmaceutical industry, reducing the interest of pharmaceutical companies in developing drugs in space.
A study by financial firm TD Cowen found that of the estimated 29 million Americans with an alcohol use disorder, less than 5 percent receive drug treatment. The organization pointed out issues such as doctors not knowing the drugs to treat alcohol use and compliance with the drug.
“Alcohol is currently the leading cause of cirrhosis and liver transplants in the US,” Leggio told in an email Thursday. “We need to develop novel treatments for alcohol-related liver disease and new treatments for the underlying medical problem that leads to ALD, which is alcohol use disorder.”
“It's very promising and exciting that a company like Novo Nordisk is taking the lead in conducting such an important clinical trial,” said Leggio.
Novo Nordisk is looking at several drugs in a newly announced trial in alcohol-related liver disease; In addition to semaglutide, the company said it will investigate trial drugs cagrilintide and zalfermin — listed in the trial's filing as NNC0194-0499 — alone and in combination.
Cagrilintide is a drug that mimics the hormone amylin, which Novo Nordisk is testing in combination with semaglutide – another hormone mimic called GLP-1 – in large trials in both diabetes and weight loss, calling the combination CagriSema. Zalfermin, the company acts as another metabolic hormone. FGF21It is mainly produced in the liver.
Although trials using semaglutide and similar drugs are still in the early stages, several reports have emerged showing the drugs' effects on alcohol use, according to Ligio, Hendershot, and other researchers. warned According to his opinion in the journal Nature Medicine, the drugs should not be prescribed for alcohol use disorder until their safety and effectiveness are proven in clinical trials.
“Clinical decisions should be made from controlled studies that correlate with other clinical and preclinical evidence,” the researchers said in a December review. “Well controlled [trials] Scientific rigor is required before any claims can be made for alcohol use disorder and other substance use disorders.