Ozempic could be ‘accidental’ treatment for addiction: report

Miracle drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy — which have recently exploded in popularity for their incredible weight loss side effects — may also quell the addictive nature of a person’s mind as well, experts say.

Patients who have taken these semaglutide Type 2 diabetes treatments have self-confessed to controlling their impulses more — especially when it comes to buying and eating junk food.

Last year, many on semaglutide drugs reported having fewer cravings for fast foods like Chick-fil-A and caffeine-filled coffee too.

Such is the case of Victoria Rutledge, who told the Atlantic that she’d often let $500 organic groceries rot in her fridge and would rather snack sweets bought hastily at Target.

“I couldn’t stop from going to that extreme,” she said.

But after beginning her Wegovy treatment, she no longer felt such urges, particularly with impulse buying.

“I’ve never done that before,” Rutledge said.

Obesity medicine specialist Shauna Levy at Tulane University has also observed this trend in her patients — but not just for suppressing their appetites.

“I have noticed that people want to drink less alcohol. I have also noticed a decrease in binge eating behavior,” she told the Daily Mail.

Tar Heel scientists at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill are currently researching to see if drugs like these can suppress urges to drink and smoke as well.

Specifically, these drugs act as glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), which regulates hunger by communicating with the brain to produce certain levels of insulin and lower blood sugar.

“GLP-1 receptor [medications] decrease the reward the brain feels from addictive behaviors like eating, drinking, smoking, shopping, etc,” Levy added.

“It was a really cool finding. These medications can treat so many different problems … We need to do more research to understand the mechanism.”

Prior 2021 research on the matter has shown a prospective downside to the medications; people who have taken pharmaceuticals like Ozempic and Wegovy immediately derailed when they seized the use of the drugs.

Wegovy users commonly regained two-thirds of their lost weight and had their appetites return with a vengeance.

“When you’re at that max weight loss, your body’s hunger hormones are the highest,” Dr. Holly Lofton, the director of the weight management program at NYU Langone Health told NBC.

“So if you lose 50 pounds and regain 25, your hunger is the highest when you’ve lost the 50. And even when you regain the 25, it doesn’t go back to baseline; your hunger is higher than prior to losing weight.”