Could Ozempic curb your cigarettes craving? A new study suggests semaglutide may help people quit smoking.
Semaglutide — the active ingredient in medications such as Ozempic and Wegovy — has been a game changer for diabetes and obesity. But some patients have reported another unexpected effect: reduced cravings for things like cigarettes and alcohol. Now new research published in the Annals of Internal Medicine supports the theory that semaglutide might indeed help people kick their smoking habits.
The researchers caution that their study isn’t sufficient evidence that doctors should start prescribing semaglutide for smoking cessation. Experts agree, however, that it’s a promising sign that it and similar drugs — which belong to a class known as GLP-1 receptor agonists — could one day help combat cigarette smoking, the leading cause of preventable death in the United States. Here’s what to know.
What the new study says
The study, conducted by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), saw researchers reviewing the health records of nearly 223,000 people who had recently started taking some form of medication for diabetes, including semaglutide and six other drugs. They found that people taking semaglutide were significantly less likely to be diagnosed with tobacco use disorder (the clinical name for smoking) or to need counseling on smoking cessation, compared with people taking other diabetes drugs. For example, between Dec. 1, 2017, and the end of March 31, 2023, nearly 25% of people with obesity who had started taking insulin saw a medical provider about tobacco addiction, compared with fewer than 20% of people on semaglutide. That means that about 21% fewer people needed help quitting smoking while taking the new class of medications.
It’s not proof-positive that semaglutide helps people quit smoking, but three experts all tell Yahoo Life that it’s an “exciting” signal that could be the case. Luba Yammine, an associate professor of psychiatry at UTHealth, Houston, who is studying the potential of semaglutide to treat addiction, tells Yahoo Life that the findings are “promising, in terms of their contribution to the growing body of evidence showing that GLP-1 receptor agonists may in the future expand the arsenal of treatment options for nicotine dependence.”
What do weight loss drugs have to do with smoking?
“It’s complicated,” Heath Schmidt, an addiction researcher and associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, tells Yahoo Life. “We really don’t fully understand how [GLP-1 drugs] work in the context of substance use disorder.” At least, not yet.
Animal studies suggest that they affect the brain’s reward system by blocking out some of the signals from the brain’s primary pleasure neurochemical, dopamine. “The dopamine system is what makes drugs rewarding, and if you interfere, the drugs are no longer rewarding,” study author and NIDA director Dr. Nora Volkow, tells Yahoo Life. She, Schmidt and Yammine believe that semaglutide’s ability to disrupt this out-of-control reward system may be responsible for reduced cravings, for food and nicotine alike (and research suggests it may work similarly for other substances too).
Why it matters — and what it could mean for smokers
For one, smoking raises the risks of developing and having worse complications from type 2 diabetes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Smoking, diabetes and obesity all significantly increase the risks of life-threatening diseases, including cancer and heart disease. Smoking and excess body weight are the two leading preventable risk factors for cancer.
The findings of the new study hold a “special excitement” for Yammine, who is currently running two trials investigating the benefits of GLP-1 drugs for smoking cessation. “People with diabetes seem to have a harder time quitting smoking.” She and other researchers theorize that people with diabetes may experience more pleasure from smoking, possibly due to the “disruptions in insulin signaling” involved in the disease. Plus, “people with diabetes tend to have greater concerns about gaining weight post-[smoking] cessation, so this is a factor that serves as a barrier for people with diabetes to make a quit-attempt,” Yammine explains. Semaglutide has the potential to kill two proverbial birds with one stone, by aiding in weight loss (or preventing weight gain) while reducing cravings.
And while there are some Food and Drug Administration-approved treatments and tools to help people quit smoking — including prescription bupropion and varenicline, as well as nicotine lozenges, gums and patches — they’re not terribly effective. About 65% of people taking medication to help them quit smoking eventually relapse, according to one study. “There’s tremendous need” for better smoking cessation treatments, Volkow says. She thinks that if semaglutide proves effective at helping people quit, it might put pressure on insurers to cover the cost of the medications.
A long road ahead
If semaglutide and similar drugs are going to be prescribed to help people quit smoking, there will first need to be clinical trials that show they work safely for this purpose. But before scientists can get to that crucial stage, there needs to be some proof of concept.
The study authors are adamant that their research doesn’t justify health care providers’ prescribing semaglutide off-label for smoking cessation. And, although some clinical trials, including Yammine’s, are underway or forthcoming, it will likely be years before there is sufficient data to know whether or not the medications really work to reduce nicotine cravings, or for whom, for how long and at what doses, the experts tell Yahoo Life.
But experts are nonetheless hopeful and see the new research as a starting point that could snowball into real progress. “We need as much of this [type of research] as possible to stimulate research into medications for substance use disorder,” Schmidt says, adding that studies like this one are “shining a light back onto these patient populations.”
