Individuals taking semaglutide drugs like Ozempic for diabetes could also be at decreased threat of drug overdose, in keeping with new analysis.
Prescriptions for semaglutide, which incorporates Ozempic and Rybelsus, have been linked to decrease overdose charges amongst sufferers with sort 2 diabetes who have been additionally recognized with opioid use dysfunction, in keeping with a paper revealed Wednesday.
The findings add to a restricted however rising physique of proof that the blockbuster drugs could also be extra than simply urge for food suppressants. Just lately, a small variety of research have steered the drugs can assist folks minimize down on doubtlessly dangerous behaviors together with ingesting and smoking.
However the paper’s authors, together with researchers at Case Western Reserve College and Nora Volkow, the director of the Nationwide Institute on Drug Abuse, cautioned that the hyperlink between GLP-1 medicine and prevention of overdose deaths is “unclear” and that extra analysis is required, together with randomized managed trials.
“GLP-1 drugs have reworked the medical administration of sort 2 diabetes and weight problems by lowering related morbidity and mortality. There may be additionally rising proof of their potential within the remedy of assorted neurological and psychiatric issues, together with substance use issues,” Volkow mentioned in a press release. “The preliminary findings from this research level to the chance that GLP-1 drugs might have worth in serving to to forestall opioid overdoses.”
The research was primarily based on six years of observational knowledge from de-identified digital well being data. Eligible research topics have been restricted to sufferers recognized with sort 2 diabetes and opioid use dysfunction, and who have been prescribed semaglutide or different diabetes drugs.
General, in a research of over 33,000, semaglutide was related to “considerably decrease” threat of opioid overdose in comparison with sufferers taking different diabetes drugs, together with others that additionally goal the GLP-1 receptor.
Even when the findings are validated, nonetheless, it’s unclear what implications they maintain for the drug overdose disaster and for public well being extra broadly.
Of the estimated 2 million People with opioid use dysfunction, it’s unclear what number of even have diabetes or weight-related circumstances that would immediate them to hunt GLP-1s — and, given the drugs’ price ticket, what number of may entry them, even when they have been .
Furthermore, it’s unclear whether or not folks taking GLP-1s who even have opioid use dysfunction are those that are utilizing the riskiest medicine. For years, the ultra-potent artificial opioid fentanyl has accounted for the lion’s share of all U.S. overdose deaths, whereas deaths from prescription opioids like oxycodone and hydrocodone lately dropped under 10,000 in a current 12-month interval — a notable quantity that nonetheless pales compared to the roughly 65,000 fentanyl deaths that occurred throughout the identical stretch.
GLP-1 medicine are additionally identified to have important uncomfortable side effects. In a small research earlier this 12 months of individuals with opioid use dysfunction, greater than 50% of sufferers taking liraglutide, one other GLP-1, failed to finish a three-week trial because of gastrointestinal misery.
Nonetheless, drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic may present an alternative choice for sufferers struggling to entry extra conventional dependancy drugs like methadone or buprenorphine.
“Different drugs to assist folks deal with opioid use dysfunction and forestall overdosing are essential,” mentioned Rong Xu, a co-leader of the research and the professor of biomedical informatics at Case Western. “Due to this fact, our findings recommend that you will need to proceed learning semaglutide as a attainable new remedy for combating this horrible epidemic.”
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