Ozempic could cure cravings for alcohol, nicotine and drugs

Ozempic and Wegovy are quickly becoming known as wonder drugs for their ability to treat an ever-growing range of conditions.

Heart failure? Check.

Type 2 diabetes? Check.

Obesity, heart attack and stroke? Check, check and check.

On top of all that, a growing number of anecdotal reports and medical studies indicate that semaglutide — the generic name for the ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy — can curb addictive cravings and behaviors in users who were most likely to have been taking the pricey and trendy drugs for an entirely different reason.

Some of the compulsions it appears that semaglutide might help control, include:

• Alcohol intake
• Binge eating and impulse snacking
• Cigarette smoking, use of other tobacco products
• Use of vaping products
• Impulse and “shopaholic” buying
• Nail biting
• Opioid use
• Gambling

Although the wave of anecdotal reports has vastly outpaced clinical studies, doctors and patients alike are picking up on an undeniable trend.

“It’s very, very strange,” said Cheri Ferguson, who started on Ozempic to lose the weight she gained during the COVID-19 pandemic. And now — in addition to losing 38 pounds — she’s no longer interested in cigarettes or vaping.

“It’s like someone’s just come along and switched the light on, and you can see the room for what it is,” Ferguson told CNN. “And all of these vapes and cigarettes that you’ve had over the years, they don’t look attractive anymore.”

J. Paul Grayson also gained weight during the pandemic, which contributed to his diagnoses of high blood pressure, prediabetes and heart arrhythmia.

After starting on Ozempic, “right away, I started eating less and losing weight,” Grayson, 73, told NPR. But something odd also started happening: “I ordered a beer, took a sip, and I couldn’t finish it,” he said.

“You know how sometimes you taste a beer, and it’s like, ‘Oh my God, this tastes so good that I want to guzzle it.’ Well, I didn’t feel like guzzling. I just really felt like sipping it,” Grayson added.

The tales of curbed addictions and obsessions aren’t lost on medical experts.

“I have had a number of patients [say] ‘Hey, I’ve noticed this change; could that be due to this medication?’” said Dr. Jena Shaw Tronieri, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine.

Tronieri is conducting a clinical trial of semaglutide to better understand its effect on appetite. People taking the drug typically say things like, “‘You know what, I’m just not really interested in that anymore. I don’t feel like drinking,’” she reported.

Some experts believe that the drugs’ effects on people may be related to the role that dopamine, a neurotransmitter, plays in rewarding addictive and compulsive behavior.

Studies have found that in animals and people, semaglutide can diminish the release of dopamine in the brain when a person eats something deliciously sweet, or drinks a perfectly mixed, frosty margarita.

Christian S. Hendershot, a psychologist and addiction researcher at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, said, “All these reports, for the most part, are anecdotal. At the same time, it does seem like there’s a pretty strong signal here.”

He is one of several researchers at UNC currently running clinical trials to examine semaglutide’s effect on alcohol and tobacco use.

“There’s really been a large number of clinical and anecdotal reports coming in suggesting that people’s drinking behaviors are changing, and in some instances pretty substantially, while taking [Ozempic or Wegovy],” Hendershot added.

Even though Hendershot admits that “[w]e don’t yet have the clinical data necessary to draw conclusions,” he adds that “[t]o see this extent of anecdotal clinical data emerging prior to any…work being published is a relatively unprecedented situation.”

But people who have struggled with alcoholism or other behaviors for years aren’t waiting for clinical trials to be published, and some doctors are already prescribing Ozempic and Wegovy off-label for those patients.

Now that the news about semaglutide’s effectiveness has spread, Hendershot said, “[t]he horse has already left the barn,” and an increase in prescriptions for the drug “is something that’s already appearing to happen, whether we like it or not.”