Could Weight Loss Injections Help Reduce Alcohol Intake?

When you go to a weight loss clinic and are prescribed injectable medications such as Wegovy and Mounjaro, this treatment often accompanies other major changes to a person’s lifestyle and their diet.

One major change that often accompanies this is cutting alcohol intake, and with Dry January approaching, a particularly interesting and somewhat unintended effect that quite a few people who are currently prescribed injectables are experiencing is that they are choosing to drink less.

Part of this is an understanding that mixed drinks, wine and especially beer contain quite a few more calories than many people expect, with these empty calories often adding up over a night out.

However, a study from Virginia Tech University goes further than this and suggests that one of the effects of GLP-1 receptor agonists such as semaglutide is that it causes alcohol to be processed more slowly, which could lower or even stop people from drinking.

How Does Semaglutide Affect Alcohol?

The study wanted to confirm and try to explain the experience that some people on semaglutide had, where they noticed that they had fewer cravings for alcohol and drank less when they did imbibe.

To this end, the pilot study took 20 people of a roughly similar BMI, half on a maintenance dose and half on nothing at all, and gave them an alcoholic drink that needed to be finished within 10 minutes, before measuring breath alcohol, appetite, effects and taste over the course of four hours.

What they found was that the people in the study taking GLP-1 receptor agonists felt less drunk and their breath alcohol levels rose more slowly.

This is believed to be for similar reasons to why people lose weight on the injectables; the drug slows the rate at which the stomach empties, which in turn slows down the rate at which alcohol enters the bloodstream.

Could This Change Alcohol Dependency Treatments?

Alcohol, like other drugs, is more addictive if its effects appear quicker, so if a drug lowers the rate at which alcohol enters the body in both objective and subjective measures, the body will have less to process at a time, and people will feel less intoxicated as a result.

This could have quite dramatic effects for people affected by alcohol dependency and alcoholism, for which existing treatments range from non-medical measures such as interventions, detoxing and abstinence, to strong medications that affect the brain.

These medications include opioid blockers such as nalmefene and naltrexone, as well as disulfiram, a medication that deters relapses by creating unpleasant reactions to alcoholic substances, which can include mouthwash, perfume and vinegar.

By contrast, GLP-1 receptor agonists stop alcohol dependency through the stomach; by reducing the speed at which alcohol enters the body, it stops people from getting drunk as easily.

Some previously heavy drinkers on semaglutide noted that this has also coincided with a change in drinking behaviour; rather than quickly drink a pint of beer, for instance, they would tend to slowly sip it instead.

Whilst this data is promising, it must be noted that the Virginia Tech trial was a very limited pilot study, but its results corroborate with previous small-scale studies and suggest that the medication could have the potential to help people with addictions.