Ozempic’s Next Magic Trick: Treating Drug Addiction

In late 2016, Steven Klein realized that he’d lost control over his drinking and stimulant use. He became sober that December, with help from 12-step meetings. But he also struggled with overeating, which he views as another addiction. Stress from the pandemic caused him to gain more than 40 pounds during his medical residency. In 2022, he decided to try Mounjaro, part of a new class of medications like Ozempic and Wegovy that are proving effective in treating obesity and diabetes.

Dr. Klein realized that the medication was working while eating a roast beef sandwich from Jimmy John’s. Ordinarily, he would devour his meal. But this time, “I ate half the sandwich and a couple of the chips, and I was done,” he said. “It just felt like my body knew when to stop eating.”

Dr. Klein is now an addiction medicine fellow at the nonprofit Caron Treatment Centers’ residential treatment facility in Pennsylvania. He prescribes these medications to his patients in recovery to treat their obesity or diabetes, and says they report reductions in unhealthy urges for both drugs and food. Early unpublished data from a handful of people taking the drugs at Caron (before Dr. Klein worked there) found that they didn’t experience the rise in craving that would be expected when feeling stressed, which was observed in those given a placebo.

Could these medications — collectively known as GLP-1 receptor agonists — also fight America’s most difficult drug problems?

Striking new data suggests they might. On Thursday, the journal Addiction published a study that examined the medical records of half a million people with opioid use disorder and found that those who were taking GLP-1 drugs, for any reason, had a 40 percent lower overdose risk compared to people not on these drugs. The research also looked at the medical records of over 800,000 people with a history of alcohol use disorder, and found that the number of medical visits that noted current alcohol intoxication was halved in patients who were prescribed GLP-1 drugs, compared with patients who did not take the drugs.

In September, another large study of medical records of people with both opioid use disorder and Type 2 diabetes reported that the risk of hospitalization for overdose was cut by 40 to 70 percent if patients took semaglutide (sold as Ozempic or Wegovy) rather than older diabetes medications, including other, less effective GLP-1 drugs.