Ozempic 'Significantly' Lowered 'Alcohol Craving' in First Clinical Trial, with Those Taking the Drug Drinking 40% Less

• A new study (the first clinical trial of its kind) has shown that the GLP-1 agonist semaglutide — known by the brand name Ozempic — may help reduce not only alcohol cravings, but the amount of alcohol consumed when someone on the drug does drink

• The study found a "significantly reduced weekly alcohol craving" — and also showed promise in helping curb a desire for cigarettes

• With 48 participants over nine weeks, researchers acknowledge that the study is limited, however, "health implications could be substantial"

It has been theorized that Ozempic could potentially help with substance abuse disorders due to the way it works in the brain. Now the first clinical study on the potential link suggests that the drug may indeed help with alcohol-use disorder.

The drug — the brand name for the GLP-1 agonist semaglutide — “significantly reduced weekly alcohol craving,” according to a study published Wednesday, Feb. 12, in the Journal of the American Medical Association Psychiatry.

In May 2024, Novo Nordisk, the manufacturer of Ozempic, announced it would study the drug’s impact on alcohol cravings, citing “a significant unmet medical need in alcohol-related liver disease, and the first line of treatment for the condition is lifestyle intervention to refrain from drinking alcohol.”

The study consisted of 48 participants (34 women, 14 men), with half the participants receiving a weekly low-dose injection of semaglutide, while the other half received a placebo. Participants in the study were placed in a casual setting with a stocked bar.

“They were free to drink as much as they wanted to, up to a limit we set,” Dr. Christian Hendershot, director of clinical research at the USC Institute for Addiction Science and the lead author of the study, told CNN. Over the nine-week trial, not only were alcohol cravings reduced, but when those on the medication did drink alcohol, they drank less. Plus, a subgroup saw “greater relative reductions in cigarettes per day.”

Related: Stars Who've Spoken About Ozempic — and What They've Said

“We hoped to see a reduction in drinking and craving,” Hendershot told the outlet of the study, which saw those on semaglutide drinking 40% less alcohol than those on the placebo. “What I didn’t expect was the magnitude of the effects looks fairly good … compared to other alcohol-use disorder medications.”

Ozempic and others in its class (semaglutide is also marketed under the brand names Wegovy and Mounjaro) work in the brain to impact satiety. While Ozempic is approved by the FDA for people with type 2 diabetes and not necessarily for weight loss, it has become a trendy weight-loss aid.

However, those taking Ozempic have reported other benefits, such as decreased risks of heart disease, kidney disease and Alzheimer’s disease, as well as increased fertility and a reduction in alcohol cravings.

While some of these benefits are a result of weight loss, the way semaglutide works to reduce cravings may, indeed, be connected to addiction.

A study in the journal Addiction found that people addicted to alcohol who took Ozempic or similar medications had a 50% lower rate of binging on alcohol than those who did not. And people with opioid use disorder who were taking the medications had a 40% lower rate of opioid overdose.

Related: 1 in 8 U.S. Adults Have Taken Ozempic or Similar Drugs, According to a New Survey

While this study does acknowledge that it’s limited by “modest sample size and short-term treatment duration,” it notes that if GLP-1 medications prove to help with alcohol and smoking use, “health implications could be substantial.”

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As the study says, “Alcohol and cigarette use (along with obesity) are leading preventable causes of mortality and preventable cancer deaths, making individuals who smoke and drink heavily —including those with overweight or obesity — a priority population.”

“These findings provide initial prospective evidence that low-dose semaglutide can reduce craving and some drinking outcomes” researchers said, “justifying larger clinical trials to evaluate GLP-1RAs for alcohol use disorder.”

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