Semaglutide is a medication that mimics the naturally occurring GLP-1 hormone in the body. Semaglutide is originally a diabetes medication that is increasingly being sold as a popular weight-loss drug like Ozempic or Wegovy.<\/p>\n
![\"SYDNEY,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-2177724859-e1786644801310.jpg\")
Ozempic is a medicine for adults with type 2 diabetes that, along with diet and exercise, may improve blood sugar. Getty Images photo by Steve Christo-Corbis.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really opens the door to being more of a front-line drug that could be available, say, in primary care or other settings where patients are very comfortable going,\u201d Oslin said. \u201cPrimary care is our frontline mental health program. It\u2019s where mental health starts for almost all patients, whether that be for addiction, depression, anxiety, whatever. We need better tools that those providers could potentially use and get more people in treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than 400,000 veterans<\/a> have been diagnosed with alcohol use disorder, but fewer than 40,000 are treated with medication \u2014 rates that Oslin said are \u201ctoo low\u201d but still higher than those across the entire U.S. population<\/a>.<\/p>\n To treat alcoholism, veterans can attend talk therapy, addiction programs, or some doctors prescribe pharmaceuticals like Naltrexone or Topiramate. But \u201cthe reality is, all those treatments are woefully underused both by clinicians as well as patients,\u201d Oslin said.<\/p>\n For the trial, more than 600 veterans diagnosed with moderate to severe alcohol use disorder <\/a>will self-administer weekly doses of semaglutide or a placebo. Researchers will monitor whether veterans taking semaglutide have fewer alcohol cravings and evaluate how it affects alcohol addiction symptoms and their overall physical and mental health<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Because the study was designed to see if semaglutide could eventually be prescribed by a primary doctor, veterans are not required to do simultaneous mental health treatment. Local VA clinicians will do 15- to 20-minute medical management sessions, or what Oslin described as \u201ctherapy lite,\u201d where they set goals with patients around alcohol consumption.<\/p>\n \u201cRequiring people to be in a psychiatric clinic or to be in an addiction clinic, we actually didn\u2019t want to do that because that makes it much more complicated to make the results more available to people,\u201d Oslin said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Dr. Eric Dieperink, a psychiatrist who will lead trials at the Minneapolis VA in Minnesota, said veterans should expect a \u201cfairly large initial commitment\u201d with thorough medical evaluations, multiple blood tests, and assessments to determine a proper semaglutide dose. Over the course of the trial, doses may gradually increase.<\/p>\n Three separate studies have found that semaglutide reduced drinking behaviors in patients with alcohol use disorder. The trials found \u201crobust therapeutic effects<\/a>,\u201d significant reductions in \u201cheavy drinking days\u201d and<\/a> data that showed they cut down on the number of drinks per day<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cGLP-1s are naturally occurring peptides in all of us, and these medications sort of mimic that natural process and seem to dampen people\u2019s desire for excessive activities like excessive eating or excessive alcohol intake,\u201d Oslin said.<\/p>\n![\"U.S.](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/8959757-e1786644680838.jpg\")
The new VA study will assess veterans diagnosed with moderate to severe alcohol use disorder. Army photo by Sgt. Christopher Sanchez.<\/p>\n