Obesity medication may reduce the risk of dying from intoxicants

Obesity drugs can reduce drug-related deaths and prevent addiction, says an exceptionally broad American research.

It is about GLP-1 drugs that mimic the intestinal hormone, which are used to treat type 2 diabetes and obesity. They include, for example, semaglutide and liraglutide.

The most dramatic result of the study was that the risk of drug addicts dying from abuse decreased by 50 percentif they used such an obesity drug.

The background is probably that the drugs are connected to the brain’s impulse control and reward system.

Medicines enhance the secretion of insulin, slow down the emptying of the stomach, increase the feeling of satiety and reduce the appetite.

They also seem to silence the “noise” in the brain of addiction, whether it’s alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, nicotine, opioids or other addictive substances.

This is what the head of the study, an epidemiologist, writes Ziyad Al-Aly British Medical Journalissa. He works at the University of Washington in St. Louis.

The study was published British Medical Journal in the journal. It was based on the health data of 600,000 people.

The research shows a connection between drug use and substance abuse problems, but not a cause and effect relationship.

Research the point was the previous findings, according to which drug users reduced their alcohol consumption.

Now the researchers compared two large groups, each of which included people with type 2 diabetes. The groups were followed for three years.

Another group used a GLP-1 drug. The control group used another diabetes drug that acts in the kidneys and not in the brain like GLP-1 drugs that mimic the gut hormone.

Depending on the substance, the risk of GLP-1 drug users ending up addicted to substances was 14-25 percent lower than that of controls.

In the second sub-experiment, drug addicts were compared based on the registers. Users of the GLP-1 drug ended up in the emergency room or hospital less often.

They also had fewer substance-related deaths, overdoses, and suicide attempts.

“At issue is an observational study. The results can be affected by the kind of people who end up using GLP-1 obesity drugs,” commented the epidemiologist Mika Kivimäki. He works as a professor at the University of Helsinki and University College London.

The drug’s reducing effect on heavy alcohol consumption is still “biologically plausible” for him. Similar results have also been obtained from randomized drug trials.

Another one led by Al-Aly was published on the benefits and harms of new obesity drugs extensive research a year ago.

The use of medicines was also accompanied by a decrease in the use of intoxicants. The risk of suicidal thoughts also decreased, as did the risk of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders.