Huge Study Finds Constellation of Health Benefits for Ozempic Beyond Weight Loss
In a ginormous new study, researchers have begun mapping the manifold health benefits of drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy beyond weight loss.
Published in the journal Nature Medicine, this new study led by Ziyad Al-Aly of the Veteran's Affairs health system in St. Louis tracked millions of diabetes patient outcomes over a period of 3.5 years.
Of those, over 215,000 had been prescribed a glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) agonist receptor — the class of drugs that includes Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, Zepbound, and others — and 1.7 million were on another form of blood sugar-lowering medicine.
Looking at other disorders in the data ranging from Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's to kidney disease and opiate addiction, Al-Aly and his team found that those who were on GLP-1 medications saw significant improvement across a staggering range of health concerns — and far beyond anything clearly linked to weight or blood sugar.
Though many studies have found that these blockbuster drugs seem to be beneficial for specific disorders, "no one had comprehensively investigated the effectiveness and risks of GLP-1 receptor agonists across all possible health outcomes," the physician-scientist told Nature.
In particular, Al-Aly said that the drugs' impact on addiction disorders "stood out" to him, with 13 percent of the GLP-1 cohort who had issues with addiction seeing improvement — a finding that dovetails with other studies about these drugs and their effect on addiction.
Other apparent benefits were even harder to make sense of. Al-Aly and his team also discovered that psychotic disorder risk was lowered by 18 percent for the GLP-1 cohort, and the Alzheimer's risk was cut by 12 percent.
"Interestingly, GLP-1RA drugs act on receptors that are expressed in brain areas involved in impulse control, reward and addiction — potentially explaining their effectiveness in curbing appetite and addiction disorders," Al-Aly said in a statement published by the University of Washington, which was also involved in the study. "These drugs also reduce inflammation in the brain and result in weight loss; both these factors may improve brain health and explain the reduced risk of conditions like Alzheimer's disease and dementia."
While those findings are indeed incredible, the researchers also found that other issues seemed to be exacerbated by taking GLP-1s. Along with an 11 percent increase in arthritis risk, the team found a whopping 146 percent increase in cases of pancreatitis — another discovery that complements prior research into the drugs' dark side.
Though that figure is pretty jarring, Al-Aly seemed to take it in stride.
"Given the drugs' newness and skyrocketing popularity, it is important to systematically examine their effects on all body systems — leaving no stone unturned — to understand what they do and what they don't do," he said in the UWash press release.
By looking so deeply into the drugs, these scientists are, as Al-Aly puts it, drawing a "comprehensive atlas mapping the associations" of GLP-1 drugs that looks into all of their effects on the body — an important quest as they continue to rise in popularity and usage.
More on GLP-1s: Woman Annoyed When She Gets on Wegovy and It Does Nothing
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