Folks taking semaglutide medicines like Ozempic for diabetes could also be at decreased danger of drug overdose, based on new analysis.
Prescriptions for semaglutide, which incorporates Ozempic and Rybelsus, had been linked to decrease overdose charges amongst sufferers with sort 2 diabetes who had been additionally recognized with opioid use dysfunction, based on a paper printed Wednesday.
The findings add to a restricted however rising physique of proof that the blockbuster medicines could also be extra than simply urge for food suppressants. Not too long ago, a small variety of research have instructed the medicines may also help folks minimize down on probably dangerous behaviors together with consuming 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 medicines have remodeled the scientific 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 therapy of assorted neurological and psychiatric problems, together with substance use problems,” Volkow mentioned in a press release. “The preliminary findings from this examine level to the likelihood that GLP-1 medicines could have worth in serving to to forestall opioid overdoses.”
The examine was primarily based on six years of observational information from de-identified digital well being data. Eligible examine topics had been restricted to sufferers recognized with sort 2 diabetes and opioid use dysfunction, and who had been prescribed semaglutide or different diabetes medicines.
Total, in a examine of over 33,000, semaglutide was related to “considerably decrease” danger of opioid overdose in comparison with sufferers taking different diabetes medicines, 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 situations that might immediate them to hunt GLP-1s — and, given the medicines’ price ticket, what number of may entry them, even when they had 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 not too long ago dropped beneath 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 recognized to have important unwanted effects. In a small examine earlier this yr of individuals with opioid use dysfunction, greater than 50% of sufferers taking liraglutide, one other GLP-1, failed to finish a three-week trial on account of gastrointestinal misery.
Nonetheless, medicines like Wegovy and Ozempic may present an alternative choice for sufferers struggling to entry extra conventional habit medicines like methadone or buprenorphine.
“Various medicines to assist folks deal with opioid use dysfunction and forestall overdosing are essential,” mentioned Rong Xu, a co-leader of the examine and the professor of biomedical informatics at Case Western. “Subsequently, our findings counsel that it is very important proceed finding out semaglutide as a attainable new therapy for combating this horrible epidemic.”
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