Weight Loss Drugs Like Ozempic May Boost Brainpower

The hottest drug on the market might also be an unexpected brain booster. In a study published this month, scientists found evidence that semaglutide—the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy—can have possible benefits for people’s cognition as well as help reduce nicotine dependence. The drug is currently being tested as a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease.

Benefits beyond obesity

Semaglutide is part of a drug class that mimics naturally occurring GLP-1, an important hormone that helps regulate our blood sugar and hunger, among other functions. GLP-1 drugs have been used for nearly two decades to treat type 2 diabetes. But more recent medications like semaglutide and tirzepatide (Mounjaro/Zepbound) have proven to be much more effective at helping people lose weight than diet and exercise alone. In clinical trials, people using these drugs have lost an average of 15% to 20% of their body weight over a year’s time.

Scientists have begun to discover, however, that the potential of these drugs extends beyond just treating obesity and diabetes. Clinical trials have shown that semaglutide can prevent heart and kidney disease in obese people vulnerable to it, for instance, while more speculative research has even suggested that GLP-1 drugs can blunt a person’s overall cancer risk. Scientists from the UK’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Oxford Health Biomedical Research Center and the Medical Research Council conducted this latest study, deciding to look at semaglutide’s possible effects on the brain.

Ozempic’s potential brain boost

The team compared the electronic health records of over 20,000 type 2 diabetes patients who were prescribed semaglutide to similarly sized groups who were prescribed one of three other common diabetes medications. They specifically tracked how often people in these groups were diagnosed with neurological or psychiatric problems in the year after starting therapy with these drugs. 

Overall, the researchers found that semaglutide wasn’t associated with a higher risk of neuropsychiatric problems compared to these other medications. And even after trying to control for potential biases, they spotted a possible link between taking semaglutide and a smaller chance of certain issues, depending on the comparison drug. People on semaglutide had a lower risk of nicotine dependence, for instance, compared to those on glipizide and empagliflozin; they also had a lower risk of dementia compared to those taking sitagliptin.

“Concerns regarding potential neuropsychiatric adverse outcomes associated with semaglutide are not supported by our analyses, which is informative to regulatory bodies, patients, and clinicians,” the researchers wrote in their paper, published earlier this month in the journal eClinicalMedicine.

Retrospective studies such as this one cannot prove a causal link between semaglutide and better brain health. The study also only explicitly studied people with diabetes, not people with obesity (while some likely had both diabetes and obesity, the analysis can’t be used to generalize to those with the latter condition). But other studies have suggested that semaglutide can improve outcomes like depression, anxiety, and alcohol dependence. According to the researchers, their results should spur further study into the brain-boosting potential of semaglutide and similar drugs.

“Our results suggest that semaglutide use could extend beyond managing diabetes, potentially offering unexpected benefits in the treatment and prevention of cognitive decline and substance misuse,” said lead researcher Riccardo De Giorgi, a clinical lecturer at the University of Oxford, in a statement from the university.

The drug’s possible neurological benefits are definitely being taken seriously by its maker Novo Nordisk. The Danish-based company is conducting two large-scale, placebo-controlled trials to see whether semaglutide can improve the trajectory of people diagnosed with early Alzheimer’s disease, with results expected to arrive in the next few years.