"People struggling with many addictions, ranging from opioids to gambling, are reporting similar experiences in clinics, on social media and around dinner tables. None of them started these drugs to quit. This pattern of people losing their cravings across a broad range of addictive substances has no precedent in medicine."
"People taking GLP-1 drugs often talk about "food noise" vanishing: the constant mental chatter about food that dominated their days simply goes quiet. But my patients were reporting that it wasn't just food: They were noticing that the preoccupation with smoking, drinking and using drugs that drives people back despite their best intentions to stop was going quiet too."
"My team and I set out to test whether GLP-1 drugs - medications like semaglutide (Ozempic and Wegovy) and tirzepatide (Mounjaro and Zepbound), originally developed for diabetes and then approved for obesity - could do what no existing addiction treatment does: curb craving itself. Our evidence strongly suggests they can."
Patients taking GLP-1 drugs like semaglutide and tirzepatide report unexpected loss of interest in addictive substances including cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs without intentional quit attempts. This phenomenon extends beyond the known effect of reduced "food noise" to encompass broader addiction cravings. The pattern is unprecedented in medical history, with people across various addictions reporting similar experiences through clinical settings and social media. A physician-scientist recognized this as a significant public health opportunity, given that many addictions lack approved treatments and existing medications are underutilized. Research investigating whether GLP-1 drugs can suppress cravings across multiple substances has produced strong preliminary evidence supporting this therapeutic potential.
Read at Fortune
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