Weight Loss Is Only The Beginning For Ozempic: The Latest Discovery Could Save Countless Lives
Ozempic has been called a "wonder drug," with a growing body of research showing that it may help treat a huge range of health conditions. Now, a new study shows it might have yet another use: lowering the risk of overdose in people with opioid use disorder.
The findings are preliminary, but the U.S. has been battling an opioid epidemic for decades. As a result, any promising treatment option feels like a big step forward.
So, what’s the connection between Ozempic and opioid use disorder? Experts break it down.
Meet the experts: Pat Aussem, VP of Consumer Clinical Content Development at Partnership to End Addiction. Medhat Mikhael, MD, pain management specialist and medical director of the non-operative program at the Spine Health Center at MemorialCare Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, California. Tyler J. Varisco, PharmD, PhD, an assistant professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Health Outcomes of Policy and assistant director for Research Development in the Prescription Drug Misuse Education and Research Center at the University of Houston College of Pharmacy. Gitanjali Srivastava, MD, chief of obesity medicine at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
What did the study find?
The study, which was published in JAMA Network Open on September 25, analyzed six years of health records of nearly 33,000 people with opioid use disorder who also had type 2 diabetes. The researchers discovered that people who were prescribed semaglutide (the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy) had a significantly lower risk for opioid overdose compared to people who took one of eight other diabetes medications.
The findings suggest that semaglutide has “potential therapeutic value for preventing overdoses,” the researchers wrote in the study.
Does Ozempic lower the risk of opioid overdoses?
Possibly. It’s important to note that this is one study, and even the researchers noted in the paper that the link needs to be explored more.
Pat Aussem, the vice president of Consumer Clinical Content Development at Partnership to End Addiction, agrees. “These results are preliminary and primarily based on observational data,” she says. “We need more rigorous clinical trials to fully understand how semaglutide can be part of treatment plans for opioid use disorder.”
In the study, semaglutide was compared to a wide array of anti-diabetic medications, including other GLP-1 agonists (a class of medications that can help manage blood sugar), points out Tyler J. Varisco, PharmD, PhD, an assistant professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Health Outcomes of Policy and assistant director for Research Development in the Prescription Drug Misuse Education and Research Center at the University of Houston College of Pharmacy. "Additional research, including clinical trials, is needed before we can make any practice decisions from this work," he adds.
Aussem stresses that people with opioid use disorder have other proven treatment options. “While the prospect of a new medication is exciting, we have medications for opioid use disorder that work but are vastly underutilized,” she says. “Rather than waiting for the controlled clinical trials needed to understand which addiction profiles can benefit from semaglutides, we need to advocate for the widespread use of the ones we already have.”
A bevy of "effective, safe, and affordable medications" are out there that "reduce the risk of mortality for people with opioid use disorder," like buprenorphine, a drug that "has been reliably demonstrated to reduce the risk of overdose in clinical trials," Varisco says. "I think we need to pay more attention to improving access to drugs that work by reforming policy and the process of care to better support patients with opioid use disorder."
Why is there a link between Ozempic and opioid overdoses?
The medication likely impacts the cravings for pain medication that people with opioid use disorder experience, says Medhat Mikhael, MD, a pain management specialist and medical director of the non-operative program at the Spine Health Center at MemorialCare Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, California.
This is a sentiment shared by Nora D. Volkow, MD, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) at the National Institutes of Health, who wrote an essay for Women's Health about the bright future of GLP-1 medications (like Ozempic) in treating substance use disorders in March. There's a "lot of overlap" in the mechanisms that drive us to eat and the ones that drive us to take drugs—both involve the brain's motivation and reward systems. Addiction, essentially hijacks those pathways, activating the system more intensely than everyday rewards (like eating food or having social interactions)," she writes.
But studies have suggested that GLP-1 may also modify motivational pathways.
"It stands to reason, then, that if there are similar mechanisms that drive us to overeat and take drugs, and a GLP-1 agonist works on the one for overeating, then a GLP-1 agonist could also potentially help interrupt the urge to misuse drugs," Volkow writes.
When someone takes an addictive medication like an opioid, “they get a surge of dopamine,” Mikhael says, which can then lead to future cravings. “But semaglutide works on the same receptors that activate the reward system,” he says. “It’s likely that the cravings change.”
Experts are excited at the possibility of using semaglutide to treat opioid use disorder in the future, with Gitanjali Srivastava, MD, chief of obesity medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, calling the study's conclusions "quite promising."
If future studies confirm the findings, Aussem adds that semaglutide could become "a valuable tool in a holistic approach to addiction treatment"—but stresses that it won't be a standalone solution.
“Addressing substance use disorder often requires a combination of medications, therapy, and community support,” she says.
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