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Michael McCluskey, 61, entirely lost his appetite for alcohol when he started taking Ozempic. (Mark Crosby\/CBC)<\/p>\n
Scientists don\u2019t have a clear explanation for why drugs like Ozempic appear to lessen cravings for vices, including for addictive substances. But they have some ideas that they\u2019re testing \u2014 some here in Canada, where any advance would help significantly, as the country faces a growing opioid crisis.<\/p>\n
Emerging research<\/p>\n
There haven’t been many randomized clinical trials \u2014 which are considered the gold standard for evaluating medical claims \u2014 on whether GLP-1 RAs reduce addictive behaviours.<\/p>\n
There have only been two such trials studying their impact on alcohol addiction, none for opioid addiction and two for nicotine addiction, according to a recent review<\/a> published in the Journal of the Endocrine Society.<\/p>\n Christian Hendershot, a California-based Canadian researcher, co-authored one of those randomized controlled trials<\/a>, published recently in JAMA Psychiatry, looking at alcohol consumption.\u00a0<\/p>\n WATCH | How drugs like Ozempic could be used to treat addiction: Ozempic: the future of addiction treatment?<\/p>\n From gambling and alcohol to pornography, Ozempic and GLP-1 drugs could soon be used to cure all manner of addictions. Watch The Ozempic Effect: Beyond the Waistline on CBC Gem.<\/p>\n In the study, he divided 48 heavy drinkers into two groups. One received a weekly shot of semaglutide, the active ingredient in drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy, while the other was given a placebo. Then, he tracked how much alcohol the two groups consumed, both at home and in a lab setting.<\/p>\n \u201cThe semaglutide group consumed significantly less alcohol,\u201d said Hendershot, who previously held a Canada Research Chair in Alcohol Use Disorders, and is now a professor at the University of Southern California.<\/p>\n The finding is especially striking, Hendershot says, because the subjects were not looking to cut back on drinking.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe next step is to conduct the clinical trials that can establish that these medications are safe and effective in clinical populations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Still, Hendershot is urging caution until there are larger, longer-term studies. <\/p>\n A blunted dopamine rush<\/p>\n Some scientists are studying the brain\u2019s reward system to try and understand the mechanism at play, which may explain why drugs like Ozempic may reduce cravings or desire.<\/p>\n A key part of that system is dopamine, a neurotransmitter that\u2019s released when you do something pleasurable, like eating a bite of cake or wrapping up a satisfying workout. That release is essentially telling you, “This feels great!” <\/p>\n It also encourages you to do it again, giving you the motivation to repeat the action. And while the dopamine rush you get after exercising might not be the same as the one you get after eating chocolate, there are some similarities in the reward circuitries, Dr. Rodrigo Mansur, a psychiatrist and researcher at University Health Network’s Toronto Western Hospital.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are, of course, meaningful differences in how [different rewards] are regulated. But they do share those underlying neural circuits,\u201d Mansur said.<\/p>\n Drugs like Ozempic can affect those neural circuits, he said.<\/p>\n GLP-1 RAs appear to blunt the reward mechanism, the dopamine rush that comes with a reward, say researchers like Mansur. That could change how people feel desire, pleasure and motivation.<\/p>\n Mansur just finished a Phase 2 randomized clinical trial looking at how GLP-1 RAs affect motivation among 72 people struggling with depression. He’s looking to find out how hard patients who are taking the drug are willing to work for a cash prize, by measuring how much energy they burn as they take a cognitive test. He measures the energy spent with a metabolic cart, which analyzes the body as it inhales oxygen and exhales carbon dioxide.<\/p>\n The brain is the most metabolically demanding organ in the whole body, meaning that it consumes about 25 per cent of the body\u2019s energy. That\u2019s why Mansur thinks his study can quantify people’s motivation, and whether GLP-1s change that.\u00a0<\/p>\n He is studying the drugs to see how they affect patients with depression, who already tend to suffer from low energy and motivation. But he also wants to learn more about how GLP-1 RAs affect motivation and pleasure, which he hopes could be helpful for people with mood disorders \u2014 and which could have further implications in treating other illnesses, like addiction.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to understand better what drives these problems with motivation in people with depression, and we need better treatments for it.\u201d<\/p>\n Potential for addiction treatment<\/p>\n Addiction researchers in Canada also say they\u2019re excited by the potential of GLP-1 RAs in their practice. Substance use is a growing and complex problem across the country: about 15 per cent<\/a> of people surveyed by Statistics Canada were at moderate to high risk of alcohol use disorder in 2023; for cannabis, it was 13 per cent. Since 2016, there have been almost 54,000<\/a> opioid overdose deaths.<\/p>\n For that reason, researchers say they’re hungry for more evidence.<\/p>\n The working hypothesis \u2014 that GLP-1 RAs can dull the dopamine spike that follows the consumption of an addictive drug \u2014 is exciting, because it tackles the \u201cunderlying neural currency for all addictive behaviours,\u201d says James MacKillop, chair of the Peter Boris Centre for Addictions Research at McMaster University.<\/p>\n \u201cThe existing medications we have are generally drug-specific: opioid drugs for opioid-use disorder, nicotine drugs for tobacco-use disorder.\u201d<\/p>\n GLP-1 RAs, in contrast, appear to target the central pathway common to all psychoactive drugs, he says. But MacKillop warns we’re still in the very early days of the research. <\/p>\n \u2018The hype is outpacing the evidence\u2019<\/p>\n If GLP-1 RAs are effective in treating addiction, researchers must also figure out whom they are effective for \u2014 and that\u2019s not yet clear, says Dr. Sanjeev Sockalingam, chief medical officer at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto.\u00a0<\/p>\n The centre has proposed several trials looking at GLP-1 RAs to treat nicotine and alcohol use, he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ruling out whether the drugs can have side effects for those who are struggling with their mental health is also critical \u2014 and Sockalingam says while there is some preliminary evidence showing there aren’t significant mental health side effects, he wants to see longer-term studies.<\/p>\n WATCH | A look at the benefits and risks of drugs like Ozempic: Ozempic for weight loss: What’s known about the potential and the risks<\/p>\n Questions are swirling around the use of semaglutide, commonly sold under the brand name Ozempic, for weight loss. CBC\u2019s Christine Birak explores the risks and benefits of off-label uses of the drug, which is traditionally used to treat Type 2 diabetes.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cWe just need to make sure there are no unintended consequences from using these more broadly across conditions,\u201d says Sockalingam, who is cautiously optimistic about the drugs’ potential in treating addiction.<\/p>\n MacKillop agrees \u2014 he thinks while GLP-1 RAs are game-changers in many ways, there are very few \u201cfree lunches\u201d when it comes to medications. Some of their side effects are already well known, like nausea,\u00a0 vomiting and constipation.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAlmost all medications have some downsides and it takes some time to really be aware of what they are,\u201d he said. He fears that the excitement doesn’t reflect the full reality.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIn a lot of ways these drugs are still unproven,\u201d he said. \u201cThe hype is outpacing the evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n The truth is, he says, one drug can\u2019t treat addiction on its own. Building a healthy lifestyle, where people can find pleasure in other things like exercise, hobbies, and friends, is key to treating addiction, he says.<\/p>\n And, he worries, if GLP-1 RAs are an anti-desire drug, they might reduce people’s motivation to maintain those aspects of their lives.<\/p>\n \u201cThey may be anti-pleasure or anti-desire drugs. And that\u2019s not necessarily a good thing in terms of promoting a healthy recovery.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ever since he got out of the navy, Michael McCluskey, 61, was known as a heavy drinker. He…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[163,85,46,482],"class_list":{"0":"post-93824","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-medication"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1761245127_18_default.jpg\")
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Dr. Rodrigo Mansur, a psychiatrist at Toronto Western Hospital, just finished a Phase 2 clinical trial looking at the link between GLP-1 RAs and motivation among patients with depression. (Pelin Sidki\/CBC)<\/p>\nGLP-1 receptor agonists could be a game-changer in treating addiction. But for now, the ‘hype is outpacing the evidence’, says James MacKillop, chair of the Peter Boris Centre for Addictions Research at McMaster University. (Turgut Yeter\/CBC)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1761245128_153_default.jpg\")
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