Associations of Semaglutide with Incidence and Recurrence of Alcohol Use Disorder in Real-world Population

Overview

Journal Nat Commun

Specialty Biology

Date 2024 May 28

PMID 38806481

Authors

William Wang

Nora D Volkow

Nathan A Berger

Pamela B Davis

David C Kaelber

Rong Xu

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Alcohol use disorders are among the top causes of the global burden of disease, yet therapeutic interventions are limited. Reduced desire to drink in patients treated with semaglutide has raised interest regarding its potential therapeutic benefits for alcohol use disorders. In this retrospective cohort study of electronic health records of 83,825 patients with obesity, we show that semaglutide compared with other anti-obesity medications is associated with a 50%-56% lower risk for both the incidence and recurrence of alcohol use disorder for a 12-month follow-up period. Consistent reductions were seen for patients stratified by gender, age group, race and in patients with and without type 2 diabetes. Similar findings are replicated in the study population with 598,803 patients with type 2 diabetes. These findings provide evidence of the potential benefit of semaglutide in AUD in real-world populations and call for further randomized clinicl trials.

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