The researchers then looked at the effect of drugs including alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, nicotine and opioids over three years.
The study found a 50% lower death rate and 40% lower overdose rate for users with addiction. Photo / Getty Images
For veterans who already had a drug addiction, taking GLP-1s was linked to a 50% lower rate of death and a 40% lower rate of overdose.
The rate of emergency department visits was more than 30% lower, while hospital admissions and suicidal thoughts or attempts were down by a quarter.
Among veterans with no history of drug addiction, taking GLP-1s was linked with a 14% lower risk of developing one.
Ziyad Al-Aly, an epidemiologist at Washington University in St Louis and the study’s senior author, told AFP it was “quite a surprise” how many substance-use disorders the GLP-1s appeared to prevent.
“The effect was not confined to one substance, it was evident across the board for all addictive substances,” he told AFP.
The research is observational, so cannot directly prove that the GLP-1s caused the results seen in the study.
And exactly how these appetite-suppressing drugs could fight addiction remains unclear.
However, there have been suggestions they could have an impact on how our brains reward certain behaviours.
The researchers also warned that the participants were mostly older white men – though the results appeared consistent for women as well.
Fares Qeadan, a biostatistics expert at Loyola University Chicago not involved in the research, said the “implications are pragmatic rather than revolutionary”.
“Policymakers should therefore avoid premature ‘Ozempic for addiction’ narratives,” Qeadan said in a linked editorial in the BMJ.
And even if clinical trials confirm these drugs are effective against addiction, they are expensive and not available equally to all countries, he added.
-Agence France-Presse